THE  LIBRARY  / 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
EDWIN  CORLE 

PRESENTED  BY 
JEAN  CORLE 


EVELYN   INNES 


BY 

GEORGE   MOORE 

AUTHOR    OF    ESTHER    WATERS 


NEW   YORK 

D.    APPLETON    AND   COMPANY 
1898 


COPTRIOHT,    1SW, 

Br  D.  AI'l'LETON  AND  COMPANY. 


EVELYN  INNES. 


THE  thin  winter  day  had  died  early,  and  at  four  o'clock 
it  was  dark  night  in  the  long  room  in  which  Mr.  Innes 
gave  his  concerts  of  early  music.  An  Elizabethan  virginal 
had  come  to  him  to  be  repaired,  and  he  had  worked  all  the 
afternoon,  and  when  overtaken  by  the  dusk,  he  had  impa- 
tiently sought  a  candle  end,  lit  it,  and  placed  it  so  that  its 
light  fell  upon  the  jacks.  .  .  .  Only  one  more  remained  to 
be  adjusted.  He  picked  it  up,  touched  the  quill  and 
dropped  it  into  its  place,  rapidly  tuned  the  instrument,  and 
ran  his  fingers  over  the  keys. 

Iron-grey  hair  hung  in  thick  locks  over  his  forehead, 
and,  shining  through  their  shadows,  his  eyes  drew  attention 
from  the  rest  of  his  face,  so  that  none  noticed  at  first  the 
small  and  firmly  cut  nose,  nor  the  scanty  growth  of  beard 
twisted  to  a  point  by  a  movement  habitual  to  the  weak, 
white  hand.  His  face  was  in  his  eyes:  they  reflected  the 
flame  of  faith  and  of  mission;  they  were  the  eyes  of  one 
whom  fate  had  thrown  on  an  obscure  wayside  of  dreams, 
the  face  of  a  dreamer  and  propagandist  of  old-time  music 
and  its  instruments.  He  sat  at  the  virginal,  like  one  who 
loved  its  old  design  and  sweet  tone,  in  such  strict  keeping 
with  the  music  he  was  playing — a  piece  by  W.  Byrd,  "John, 
come  kiss  me  now  " — and  when  it  was  finished,  his  fingers 
strayed  into  another,  "  Xancie,"  by  Thomas  Morley.  His 
hands  moved  over  the  keyboard  softly,  as  if  they  loved  it, 
and  his  thoughts,  though  deep  in  the  gentle  music,  enter- 
tained casual  admiration  of  the  sixteenth  century  organ, 
which  had  lately  come  into  his  possession,  and  which  he 
could  see  at  the  end  of  the  room  on  a  slightly  raised  plat- 

2039-22 


2  EVELYN  INNES. 

form.  Its  beautiful  shape,  and  the  shape  of  the  old  in- 
struments, vaguely  perceived,  lent  an  enchantment  to  the 
darkness.  In  the  corner  was  a  viola  da  gamba,  and  against 
the  walls  a  harpsichord  and  a  clavichord. 

Above  the  virginal  on  which  Mr.  Innes  was  playing 
there  hung  a  portrait  of  a  woman,  and,  happening  to  look 
up,  a  sudden  memory  came  upon  him,  and  he  began  to  play 
an  aria  out  of  Don  Giovanni.  But  he  stopped  before  many 
bars,  and  holding  the  candle  end  high,  so  that  he  could  see 
the  face,  continued  the  melody  with  his  right  hand.  To 
see  her  lips  and  to  strike  the  notes  was  almost  like  hearing 
her  sing  it  again.  Her  voice  came  to  him  through  many 
years,  from  the  first  evening  he  had  heard  her  sing  at  La 
Scala.  Then  he  was  a  young  man  spending  a  holiday  in 
Italy,  and  she  had  made  his  fortune  for  the  time  by  sing- 
ing one  of  his  songs.  They  were  married  in  Italy,  and  at 
the  end  of  some  months  they  had  gone  to  Paris  and  to 
Brussels,  where  Mrs.  Innes  had  engagements  to  fulfil.  It 
was  in  Brussels  that  she  had  lost  her  voice.  For  a  long 
while  it  was  believed  that  she  might  recover  it,  but  these 
hopes  proved  illusory,  and,  in  trying  to  regain  what  she 
had  lost  irrevocably,  the  money  she  had  earned  dwindled 
to  a  last  few  hundred  pounds.  The  Innes'  had  returned 
to  London,  and,  with  a  baby-daughter,  settled  in  Dulwich. 
Mr.  Innes  accepted  the  post  of  organist  at  St.  Joseph's, 
the  parish  church  in  Southwark,  and  Mrs.  Innes  had  begun 
her  singing  classes. 

Her  reputation  as  a  singer  favoured  her,  and  an  apti- 
tude for  teaching  enabled  her  to  maintain,  for  many  years, 
a  distinguished  position  in  the  musical  world.  Mr.  Innes's 
abilities  contributed  to  their  success,  and  he  might  have 
become  a  famous  London  organist  if  he  had  devoted  him- 
self to  the  instrument.  But  one  day  seeing  in  a  book  the 
words  "viola  d'amore,"  he  fancied  he  would  like  to  p< 
an  instrument  with  such  a  name.  The  instrument  de- 
manded the  music  that  had  been  written  for  it.  Bynl's 
beautiful  vocal  Mass  1m. 1  led  him  to  Palestrina  and  Yittoria, 
and  these  wakened  in  him  dreams  of  a  sufficient  choir  at 
St.  Joseph's  for  a  revival  of  their  works. 

So  when  Evelyn  clambered  on  ber  father's  knee,  it  was 
to  learn  the  chants  that  he  hummed  from  <>1<1  manuscripts 
and  missals,  and  it  was  the  contrapuntal  fancies  of  the 


EVELYN  INNES.  3 

Elizabethan  composers  that  he  gave  her  to  play  on  the 
virginal,  or  the  preludes  of  Bach  on  the  clavichord.  Her 
infantile  graces  at  these  instruments  were  the  delight  and 
amazement  of  her  parents.  She  warbled  this  old-time 
music  as  other  children  do  the  vulgar  songs  of  the  hour; 
she  seemed  less  anxious  to  learn  the  operatic  music  which 
she  heard  in  her  mother's  class-rooms,  and  there  was  a 
shade  of  uneasiness  in  Mrs.  Innes's  admiration  of  the 
beauty  of  Evelyn's  taste;  but  Mr.  Innes  said  that  it  was 
better  that  her  first  love  should  be  for  the  best,  and  he 
could  not  help  hoping  that  it  would  not  be  with  the  airs  of 
Lucia  and  Traviata  that  she  would  become  famous.  As 
if  in  answer,  the  child  began  to  hum  the  celebrated  waltz, 
a  moment  after  a  beautiful  Ave  Maria,  composed  by  a 
Fleming  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  a  quick,  sob- 
bing rhythm,  expressive  of  na'ive  petulance  at  delay  in  the 
Virgin's  intercession.  Mr.  Innes  called  it  natural  music — 
music  which  the  modern  Church  abhorred  and  shamefully 
ostracised;  and  the  conversation  turned  on  the  incurably 
bad  taste  and  the  musical  misdeeds  of  a  certain  priest, 
Father  Gordon,  whom  Mr.  Innes  judged  to  be  responsible 
for  all  the  bad  music  to  be  heard  at  St.  Joseph's. 

For  Mr.  Innes's  ambition  was  to  restore  the  liturgical 
chants  of  the  early  centuries,  from  John  Ockeghem,  the 
Flemish  silversmith  of  Louis  XI,  whose  recreation  it  was 
to  compose  motets,  to  Thomas  da  Vittoria;  and,  after  hav- 
ing made  known  the  works  of  Palestrina  and  of  those  who 
gravitated  around  the  great  Roman  composer,  he  hoped  to 
disinter  the  masses  of  Orlando  di  Lasso,  of  Goudimel  and 
Josquin  des  Pres,  the  motets  of  Nannini,  of  Felice  Anerio, 
of  Clemens  non  Papa.  .  .  .  He  would  go  still  further 
back.  For  before  this  music  was  the  plain  chant  or  Gre- 
gorian, bequeathed  to  us  by  the  early  Church,  coming  down 
to  her,  perhaps,  from  Egyptian  civilisation,  the  mother  of 
all  art  and  all  religion,  an  incomparable  treasure  which 
unworthy  inheritors  have  mutilated  for  centuries.  It  was 
Mr.  Innes's  belief  that  the  supple,  free  melody  of  the  Gre- 
gorian was  lost  in  the  shouting  of  operatic  tenors  and  or- 
gan accompaniments.  The  tradition  of  its  true  interpreta- 
tion had  been  lost,  and  the  text  itself,  but  by  long  study 
of  ancient  missals,  Mr.  Innes  had  penetrated  the  secret  of 
the  ancient  notation,  vague  as  the  eyeballs  of  the  blind, 


4  EVELYN  INNES. 

and  in  the  absence  of  a  choir  that  could  road  this  strange 
alphabet  of  sound,  he  cherished  a  plan  for  an  edition  of 
these  old  chants,  re-written  by  him  into  the  ordinary  nota- 
tion of  our  day.  But  impassable  obstacles  intervened :  the 
apathy  and  indifference  of  the  Jesuits,  and  their  fear  lest 
such  radical  innovations  should  prove  unpopular  and  di- 
vert the  congregation  of  St.  Joseph's  elsewhere,  lie  had 
abandoned  hope  of  converting  them  from  their  error,  but 
he  was  confident  that  reaction  was  preparing  against  the 
jovialities  of  Rossini,  whose  Stabat  Mater,  he  said,  still 
desecrated  Good  Friday,  and  against  the  erotics  of.  M. 
Gounod  and  his  suite.  And  this  inevitable  reaction  M  r. 
Innes  strove  to  advance  by  his  pupils.  Many  became  dis- 
ciples and  helped  to  preach  the  new  musical  gospel.  He 
induced  them  to  learn  the  old  instruments,  and  among 
them  found  material  for  his  concerts.  Though  a  weak  man 
in  practical  conduct,  he  was  steadfast  in  his  ideas.  His 
concerts  had  begun  to  attract  a  little  attention;  he  was  re- 
ceiving support  from  some  rich  amateurs,  and  was  able  to 
continue  his  propaganda  under  the  noses  of  the  worthy 
fathers  in  whose  church  he  was  now  serving,  but  where  he 
knew  that  one  day  he  would  be  master. 

But,  unfortunately,  Mr.  Innes  could  only  give  a  small 
part  of  his  time  to  these  concerts.  Notwithstanding  his 
persuasiveness,  there  remained  on  his  hands  some  intracta- 
ble pupils  who  would  not  hear  of  viol  or  harpsichord,  who 
insisted  upon  being  taught  to  play  modern  masses  on  the 
organ,  and  these  he  could  not  afford  to  refuse.  For  of 
late  years  his  wife's  failing  health  had  forced  her  to  re- 
linquish teaching,  and  the  burden  of  earning  their  living 
had  fallen  entirely  upon  him.  She  hoped  that  a  long  rest 
might  improve  her  in  health,  and  that  in  some  months — 
six,  she  imagined  as  a  sufficient  interval — she  would  be 
able  to  undertake  in  full  earnestness  her  daughter's  educa- 
tion. To  do  this  had  become  her  dearest  wish;  for  there 
could  now  be  little  doubt  that  Evelyn  had  inherited  her 
voice,  the  same  beautiful  quality  and  fluency  in  vocalisa- 
tion; and  thinking  of  it,  Mrs.  Inness  held  out  her  hands 
and  looked  at  them,  striving  to  read  in  them  the  progress 
of  her  illness.  Evelyn  wondered  why,  just  at  that  moment, 
her  father  had  turned  from  the  bedside  overcome  by  sud- 
den tears.  But  whoever  dies,  life  goes  on  the  same,  our 


EVELYN  INNES.  5 

interests  and  necessities  brook  little  interference.  Meal- 
times are  always  fixed  times,  and  when  father  and  daughter 
met  in  the  parlour — it  was  just  below  the  room  in  which 
Mrs.  Innes  was  dying — Evelyn  asked  why  her  mother  had 
looked  at  her  hands  so  significantly. 

lie  said  that  it  was  thus  her  mother  foreshadowed  Vio- 
letta's  death,  when  Armand's  visit  is  announced  to  her. 

In  the  silence  which  followed  this  explanation  their 
souls  seemed  to  say  what  their  lips  could  not.  Sympathies 
and  perceptions  hitherto  dormant  were  awakened;  he  rec- 
ognised in  her,  and  she,  in  herself,  an  unsuspected  inher- 
itance. Her  voice  she  had  received  from  her  mother,  but 
all  else  came  from  her  father.  She  felt  his  life  and  char- 
acter stirring  in  her,  and  moved  as  by  a  new  instinct,  she 
sat  by  his  side,  holding  his  hand.  They  sat  waiting  for  the 
announcement  of  the  death  which  could  not  be  delayed 
much  longer,  and  each  thought  of  the  difference  the  pass- 
ing would  make  in  their  lives!  It  was  her  death  that  had 
brought  them  together,  that  had  given  them  a  new  and 
mutual  life.  And  in  those  hours  their  eyes  had  seemed  to 
seal  a  compact  of  love  and  fealty. 

This  was  three  years  ago;  but  since  Mrs.  Innes's  death 
very  little  had  been  done  with  Evelyn's  voice.  The  Jesuits 
had  spent  money  in  increasing  their  choir  and  orchestra, 
and  Mr.  Innes  was  constantly  rehearsing  the  latest  novel- 
ties in  religious  music.  All  his  spare  time  was  occupied 
with  private  teaching;  and  discovering  in  his  daughter  a 
real  aptitude  for  the  lute,  he  had  taught  her  that  instru- 
ment, likewise  the  viola  da  gamba,  for  which  she  soon  dis- 
played even  more  original  talent.  She  played  both  instru- 
ments at  his  concerts,  and  as  several  pupils  offered  them- 
selves, he  encouraged  her  to  give  lessons — he  had  made  of 
her  an  excellent  musician,  able  to  write  fugue  and  counter- 
point; only  the  production  of  the  voice  he  had  neglected. 
Now  and  again,  in  a  fit  of  repentance,  he  had  insisted  on 
her  singing  some  scales,  but  his  heart  was  not  in  the  lesson, 
and  it  fell  through. 

He  was  suspicious  that  she  knew  she  could  not  learn 
singing  from  him;  but  an  avowal  of  his  inability  to  teach 
her  would  necessitate  some  departure  from  his  own  ideas, 
and,  like  all  men  with  a  mission,  Mr.  Innes  was  deficient 
in  moral  courage,  and  in  spite  of  himself  he  evaded  all 


6  EVELYN   INNES. 

that  did  not  coincide  with  the  purpose  of  his  life.  lie 
lovi'd  his  daughter  above  everything,  except  his  music,  and 
the  thought  that  he  was  sacrificing  her  to  his  ambition 
afflicted  him  with  cruel  assaults  of  conscience.  Often  he 
asked  himself  if  he  were  capable  of  redeeming  his  promise 
to  his  dead  wife,  or  if  he  shirked  the  uncongenial  labour  it 
entailed?  And  it  was  this  tormenting  question  that  had 
impelled  him  to  light  the  candle,  and  raise  it  so  that  he 
could  better  see  his  wife's  face. 

Though  an  indifferent  painting,  the  picture  was  elabo- 
rately like  the  sitter.  The  pointed  oval  of  the  face  had 
been  faithfully  drawn,  and  its  straight  nose  and  small 
brown  eyes  were  set  characteristically  in  the  head.  Re- 
membering a  photograph  of  his  daughter,  Mr.  Innes  fetched 
it  from  the  other  end  of  the  room,  and  stood  with  it  under 
the  portrait,  so  that  he  could  compare  both  faces,  feature 
by  feature.  Evelyn's  face  was  rounder,  her  eyes  were  not 
deep-set  like  her  mother's;  they  lay  nearly  on  the  surface, 
pools  of  light  illuminating  a  very  white  and  flower-like 
complexion.  The  nose  was  short  and  high;  the  line  of  the 
chin  deflected,  giving  an  expression  of  wistfulness  to  the 
face  in  certain  aspects.  Her  father  was  still  bent  in  ex- 
amination of  the  photograph  when  she  entered.  It  was 
very  like  her,  and  at  first  sight  Nature  revealed  only  two 
more  significant  facts:  her  height — she  was  a  tall  girl — 
and  a  beautiful  undulation  in  her  walk,  occasioned  by  the 
slight  droop  in  her  shoulders.  She  was  dressed  in  dark 
green  woollen,  with  a  large  hat  to  match. 

"  Well,  darling !  arid  how  have  you  been  getting  on  ?  " 
The  vague  pathos  of  his  grey  face  was  met  by  the 
bright  effusion  of  hers,  and  throwing  her  arm  about  him, 
she  kissed  him  on  the  cheek. 

"  Pretty  well,  dear ;  pretty  well." 

"  Only  pretty  well,"  she  answered  reproachfully.  "  No 
one  has  been  here  to  interrupt  you;  you  have  had  all  the 
afternoon  for  finishing  that  virginal,  and  you've  only  been 
getting  on  '  pretty  well.'  But  I  see  your  necktie  has  come 
undone." 

Then  overlooking  him  from  head  to  foot — 
"Well,  you  have  been  making  a  day  of  it." 
"Oh,  those  are  my  old  clothes — that  is  glue;  don't  look 
at  me — I  had  an  accident  with   the  glue-pot;  and  that's 


EVELYN  INNES.  ? 

paint.     Yes;  I  must  get  some  new  shirts,  these  won't  hold 
a  button  any  longer." 

The  conversation  paused  a  few  seconds,  then  running 
her  finger  down  the  keys,  she  said — 

"  But  it  goes  admirably." 

"Yes;  I've  finished  it  now;  it  is  an  exquisite  instru- 
ment. I  could  not  leave  it  till  it  was  finished." 

"  Then  what  are  you  complaining  of,  darling  ?  Has 
Father  Gordon  been  here?  Has  he  discovered  any  new 
Belgian  composer,  and  does  he  want  all  his  music  to  be 
given  at  St.  Joseph's  ? " 

"  No ;  Father  Gordon  hasn't  been  here,  and  as  for  the 
Belgian  composers,  there  are  none  left;  he  has  discovered 
them  all." 

"  Then  you've  been  thinking  about  me,  about  my  voice. 
That's  it,"  she  said,  catching  sight  of  her  own  photograph. 
"  You've  been  frowning  over  that  photograph,  thinking  "- 
her  eyes  went  up  to  her  mother's  portrait — "  all  sorts  of 
nonsense,  making  yourself  miserable,  reproaching  yourself 
that  you  do  not  teach  me  to  vocalise,  a  thing  which  you 
know  nothing  about,  or  lamenting  that  you  are  not  rich 
enough  to  send  me  abroad,  where  I  could  be  taught  it." 
Then,  with  a  pensive  note  in  her  voice  which  did  not  escape 
him,  she  said — 

"  As  if  there  was  any  need  to  worry.  I'm  not  twenty 
yet." 

"  No,  you're  not  twenty  yet,  but  you  will  be  very  soon. 
Time  is  going  by." 

"  Well,  let  time  go  by,  I  don't  care.  I'm  happy  here 
with  you,  father.  I  wouldn't  go  away,  even  if  you  had  the 
money  to  send  me.  I  intend  to  help  you  make  the  con- 
certs a  success.  Then,  perhaps,  I  shall  go  abroad." 

His  heart  went  out  to  his  daughter.  He  was  proud  of 
her,  and  her  fine  nature  was  a  compensation  for  many  dis- 
appointments. He  took  her  in  his  arms  and  thankfully 
kissed  her.  She  was  touched  by  his  emotion,  and  conscious 
that  her  eyes  were  threatening  tears,  she  said — 

"  I  can't  stand  this  gloom.  I  must  have  some  light. 
I'll  go  and  get  a  lamp.  Besides,  it  must  be  getting  late.  I 
Avonder  what  kind  of  a  dinner  Margaret  has  got  for  us.  I 
left  it  to  her.  A  good  one,  I  hope.  I'm  ravenous." 

A  few  minutes  after  she  appeared  in  the  doorway  hold- 


8  EVELYN  INNES. 

ing  a  lamp  high,  the  light  showing  over  her  white  skin  and 
pale  gold  hair.  "  Margaret  has  excelled  herself — boiled 
haddock,  melted  butter,  a  neck  of  mutton  and  a  rice  pud- 
ding. And  I  have  brought  back  a  bag  of  oranges.  Now 
come,  darling.  You've  done  enough  to  that  virginal.  Run 
upstairs  and  wash  your  hands,  and  remember  that  the  fish 
is  getting  cold." 

She  was  waiting  for  him  in  the  little  back  room — the 
lamp  was  on  the  table — and  when  they  sat  down  to  dinner 
she  began  the  tale  of  her  day's  doings.  But  she  hadn't  got 
farther  than  the  fact  that  they  had  asked  her  to  stay  to  tea 
at  Queen's  Gate,  when  her  tongue,  which  always  went  quite 
as  fast  as  her  thoughts,  betrayed  her,  and  before  she  was 
aware,  she  had  said  that  her  pupil's  sister  was-  in  delicate 
health  and  that  the  family  was  going  abroad  for  the  winter. 
This  was  equivalent  to  saying  she  had  lost  a  pupil.  So  she 
rattled  on,  hoping  that  her  father  would  not  perceive  the 
inference. 

"  There  doesn't  seem  to  be  much  luck  about  at  pres- 
ent," he  said.  "  That's  the  third  pupil  you've  lost  this 
month." 

"  It  is  unfortunate  .  .  .  and  just  as  I  was  beginning  to 
save  a  little  money."  A  moment  after  her  voice  had  re- 
covered its  habitual  note  of  cheerfulness.  "  Then  what  do 
you  think  I  did?  An  idea  struck  me;  I  took  the  omnibus 
and  went  straight  to  St.  James's  Hall." 

"To  St.  James's  Hall!" 

"  Yes,  you  old  darling ;  don't  you  know  that  M.  Des- 
jardin,  the  French  composer,  has  come  over  to  give  a  se- 
ries of  concerts?  I  thought  I  should  like  him  to  try  my 
voice." 

"You  didn't  see  him?" 

"  Yes  I  did.  When  I  asked  for  him,  the  clerk  said, 
pointing  to  a  gentleman  coming  downstairs,  that  is  Mon- 
sieur Desjardin.  I  went  straight  up  to  him,  and  told  him 
who  I  was,  and  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  heard  of  mother. 
Just  fancy,  he  never  had;  but  he  seemed  interested  when 
I  told  him  that  everyone  said  my  voice  was  as  good  as 
mother's.  We  went  into  the  hall,  and  I  sang  to  him." 

"  What  did  you  sing  to  him  ?  " 

"'Have  you  seen  but  a  white  lily  grow?'  and  'Quo 
vous  me  coutez  cher,  mon  cccur,  pour  vos  plaisirs.' " 


EVELYN  INNES.  9 

"Ah!  that  music  must  have  surprised  him.  What  did 
he  say?" 

"  I  don't  think  I  sang  very  well,  but  he  seemed  pleased, 
and  asked  me  if  I  knew  any  modern  music.  I  said  '  Very 
little.'  lie  was  surprised  at  that.  But  he  said  I  had  a 
very  fine  voice,  and  sang  the  old  music  beautifully,  but  that 
it  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  sing  modern  music  with- 
out ruining  my  voice,  until  I  had  been  taught.  I  asked 
him  if  it  would  not  be  well  to  try  to  earn  a  little  money 
by  concert  singing,  so  that  I  might  go  abroad  later  on. 
He  said,  '  I  am  glad  that  all  my  arrangements  are  made, 
otherwise  I  might  be  tempted  to  offer  you  an  engagement. 
One  engagement  leads  to  another,  and  if  you  sing  before 
your  voice  is  properly  placed ' — "  posee  "  was  the  word  he 
used — '  you  will  ruin  it,'  " 

"Is  that  all?" 

"  Yes,  that's  all."  Then,  noticing  the  pained  look  that 
had  come  into  her  father's  face,  she  added,  "  It  was  nice 
to  hear  that  he  thought  well  of  my  voice." 

But  she  could  tell  what  he  was  thinking  of,  and  re- 
gretting her  tongue's  indiscretion,  she  tried  to  divert  his 
thoughts  from  herself.  His  brooding  look  continued,  and 
to  remove  it  she  had  to  fetch  his  pipe  and  tobacco.  When 
he  had  filled  it  for  the  third  time  he  said — 

"  There  is  the  Bach  and  the  Handel  sonata  waiting  for 
us;  we  ought  to  be  getting  to  work." 

"  I'm  quite  ready,  father.  I  suppose  I  must  not  eat  any 
more  oranges,"  and  she  surveyed  her  plate  full  of  skins. 

Mr.  Innes  took  up  the  lamp,  Evelyn  called  to  the  serv- 
ant to  get  another,  and  followed  him  into  the  music-room. 
The  lamps  were  placed  on  the  harpsichord.  She  lighted 
some  candles,  and  in  the  moods  and  aspirations  of  great  men 
they  found  themselves  in  fairyland,  and  the  lights  disap- 
peared from  the  windows  opposite,  leaving  them  still  there. 

The  wings  of  the  hours  were  light — weariness  could  not 
reach  them — and  at  half -past  eleven  Mr.  Innes  was  speak- 
ing of  a  beautiful  motet,  "  O  Magnum  Mysterium,"  by 
Vittoria.  His  fingers  lingered  in  the  wailing  .chords,  and 
he  said — 

"  That  is  where  Wagner  went  for  his  chorus  of  youths 
in  the  cupola.  The  critics  haven't  discovered  it  yet;  they 
are  still  talking  of  Palestrina." 


10  EVELYN  INNES. 


II. 

JESUITS  from  St.  Joseph's  were  not  infrequently  seen  at 
Mr.  Innes's  concerts.  The  worthy  fathers,  although  they 
did  not  see  their  way  to  guaranteeing  a  yearly  grant  of 
money  sufficient  to  ensure  adequate  perfomances  of  Pa- 
lestrina's  finest  works,  were  glad  to  support,  with  occasional 
guineas,  their  organist's  concerts.  Painters  and  men  of 
letters  were  attracted  by  them;  musicians  seldom.  Nor 
did  Mr.  Inncs  encourage  their  presence.  Musicians  were 
of  no  use  to  him.  They  were,  he  said,  divided  into  two 
classes — those  who  came  to  scoff,  and  those  who  came  to 
steal.  He  did  not  want  either  sort. 

The  rare  music  interested  but  a  handful,  and  the  audi- 
ence that  had  come  from  London  shivered  in  remembrance 
of  the  east  wind  which  had  accompanied  their  journey.  But 
this  little  martyrdom  did  not  seem  to  be  entirely  without 
its  satisfactions,  and  conscious  of  suijeriority,  they  settled 
themselves  to  listen  to  the  few  words  of  explanation  with 
which  Mr.  Innes  was  accustomed  to  introduce  the  music 
that  was  going  to  be  played.  He  was  speaking,  when  he 
was  interrupted  by  the  servant-maid,  who  whispered  and 
gave  him  a  card:  "Sir  Owen  Asher,  Bart.,  27  Berkeley 
Square."  He  left  the  room  hurriedly,  and  his  audience 
surmised  from  his  manner  that  something  important  had 
happened. 

Sir  Owen,  seemingly  a  tall  man,  certainly  above  the 
medium  height,  was  waiting  for  him  in  the  passage.  His 
thin  figure  was  wrapped  tightly  in  an  overcoat,  most  of  his 
face  was  concealed  in  the  collar,  and  the  pale  gold  coloured 
moustache  showed  in  contrast  to  the  dark  brown  fur.  The 
face,  wide  across  the  forehead,  acquired  an  accent  in  the 
pointed  chin  and  strongly  marked  jaw.  The  straight  nose 
was  thin  and  well  shaped  in  the  nostrils.  "An  attractive 
man  of  forty"  would  be  the  criticism  of  a  woman.  Sir 
Owen's  attractiveness  concentrated  in  his  sparkling  eyes  and 
his  manner,  which  was  at  once  courteous  and  manly.  He 
told  Mr.  Innes  that  he  had  heard  of  his  concerts  that  morn- 
ing at  the  office  of  the  Wagneriaii  lie-view,  and  Mr.  Innes 
indulged  in  his  habitual  dream  of  a  wealthy  patron  who 


EVELYN  INNES.  11 

would  help  him  to  realise  his  musical  ambitions.  Sir  Owen 
had  just  bought  the  periodical,  he  intended  to  make  it  an 
organ  of  advanced  musical  culture,  and  would  like  to  in- 
clude a  criticism  of  these  concerts.  Mr.  Innes  begged  Sir 
Owen  to  come  into  the  concert-room.  But  while  taking  off 
his  coat,  Sir  Owen  mentioned  what  he  had  heard  regarding 
Mr.  Innes's  desire  to  revive  the  vocal  masses  of  the  six- 
teenth century  at  St.  Joseph's,  and  the  interest  of  this  con- 
versation delayed  them  a  little  in  the  passage. 

The  baronet's  evening  clothes  were  too  well  cut  for 
those  of  a  poet,  a  designer  of  wall  paper,  or  a  journalist, 
and  his  hands  were  too  white  and  well  cared  for  at  the 
nails.  His  hair  was  pale  brown,  curling  a  little  at  the 
ends,  and  carefully  brushed  and  looking  as  if  it  had  been 
freshened  by  some  faintest  application  of  perfumed  es- 
sence. Three  pearl  studs  fastened  his  shirt  front,  and  his 
necktie  was  tied  in  a  butterfly  bow.  He  displayed  some  of 
the  nonchalant  ease  which  wealth  and  position  create, 
smiled  a  little  on  catching  sight  of  the  jersey  worn  by  a 
lady  who  had  neglected  to  fasten  the  back  of  her  bodice, 
and  strove  to  decipher  the  impression  the  faces  conveyed  to 
him.  He  grew  aware  of  that  flitting  anxiety  which  is  in- 
separable from  the  task  of  finding  a  daily  living,  and  that 
pathos  which  tells  of  fidelity  to  idea  and  abstinence  from 
gross  pleasure.  A  young  man,  who  stood  apart,  in  a  care- 
fully studied  attitude,  a  dark  lock  of  hair  falling  over  his 
forehead,  amused  him,  and  the  young  man  in  the  chair 
next  Sir  Owen  wore  a  threadbare  coat  and  clumsy  boots, 
and  sat  bolt  upright.  Sir  Owen  pitied  him  and  imagined 
him  working  all  day  in  some  obscure  employment,  finding 
his  life's  pleasure  once  a  week  in  a  score  by  Bach.  Catch- 
ing sight  of  a  priest's  profile,  a  look  of  contempt  appeared 
on  his  face. 

He  was  of  his  class,  he  had  lived  its  life  and  lived  it 
still,  in  a  measure,  but  from  the  beginning  his  ideas  and 
tastes  had  been  superior  to  those  of  a  merely  fashionable 
man.  At  five-and-twenty  he  had  purchased  a  Gainsbor- 
ough, and  at  thirty  he  had  spent  a  large  sum  of  money  in 
exhuming  some  sonatas  of  Bach  from  the  dust  in  which 
they  were  lying.  At  three-and-thirty  he  had  wrecked  the 
career  of  a  fashionable  soprano  by  inspiring  her  with  the 
belief  that  she  might  become  a  great  singer,  a  great  artist; 


12  EVELYN  INNES. 

at  five-and-thirty  Bayreuth  and  its  world  of  musical  cul- 
ture and  ideas  had  interested  him  in  spite  of  his  uncon- 
querable aversion  to  long  hair  and  dirty  hands.  After 
some  association  with  geniuses  he  withdrew  from  the  art- 
world,  confessing  himself  unable  to  bear  the  society  of 
those  who  did  not  dress  for  dinner;  but  while  repudiating, 
he  continued  to  spy  the  art-world  from  a  distance.  An 
audience  is  necessary  to  a  'cello  player,  and  the  Turf 
Club  and  the  Royal  Yacht  Club  contained  not  a  dozen 
members,  he  said,  who  would  recognise  the  Heroica  Sym- 
phony if  they  happened  to  hear  it,  which  was  not  likely. 
Lately  he  had  declared  openly  that  he  was  afraid  of  enter- 
ing any  of  his  clubs,  lest  he  should  be  asked  once  more 
what  he  thought  of  the  Spring  Handicaps,  and  if  he  in- 
tended sailing  the  Medusa  in  the  Solent  this  season.  Nev- 
ertheless, his  journey  to  Bayreuth  could  not  but  produce 
an  effect.  He  had  purchased  the  Wagnerian  Review;  it 
had  led  him  to  Mr.  Innes's  concerts,  and  he  was  already 
interested  in  the  prospect  of  reviving  the  early  music  and 
its  instruments.  That  this  new  movement  should  be  be^un 
in  Dulwich,  a  suburb  he  would  never  have  heard  of  if  it 
had  not  been  for  its  picture  gallery,  stimulated  his  curi- 
osity. 

It  is  the  variation,  not  the  ordinary  specimen,  that  is 
most  typical,  for  the  variation  contains  the  rule  in  essence, 
and  the  deviation  elucidates  the  rule.  So  in  his  revolt 
against  the  habitual  pleasures  and  ideas  of  his  class,  Sir 
Owen  became  more  explanatory  of  that  class  than  if  he  had 
acquiesced  in  the  usual  ignorance  of  £20,000  a  year.  To 
the  ordinary  eye  he  was  merely  the  conventional  standard 
of  the  English  upper  classes,  but  more  intimate  observation 
revealed  the  slight  glaze  of  Bohemianism  which  natural  in- 
clination and  many  adventures  in  that  land  had  left  upon 
him.  He  listened  without  parade,  his  grey  eyes  follow- 
ing the  music — they,  not  the  head,  seeming  to  nod  to  it; 
and  when  Mr.  Innes  approached  to  ask  him  his  opinion,  he 
sprang  to  his  feet  to  tell  him. 

One  of  the  pieces  they  had  heard  was  a  pavane  for  five 
viols  and  a  harpsichord,  composed  l.y  Ferrabosco,  son  of  the 
It:ili;m  innsieiaii  \\ln>  had  settled  in  (Jreenwich  at  the  end 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  Sir  Owen  was  extraordinarily 
pleased  and  interested,  and  declared  the  pavaiie  to  be  aa 


EVELYN  INNES.  13 

complete  as  a  sonata  by  Bach  or  Beethoven;  but  his  ap- 
preciation was  suddenly  interrupted  by  someone  looking 
at  him. 

At  a  little  distance,  Evelyn  stood  looking  at  him.  The 
moment  she  had  seen  him  she  had  stopped,  and  her  eyes 
were  delighted  as  by  a  vision.  Though  he  represented  to 
her  the  completely  unknown,  she  seemed  to  have  known 
him  always  in  her  heart;  she  seemed  to  have  been  waiting 
for  knowledge  of  this  unknown,  and  the  rumour  of  the 
future  grew  loud  in  her  ears. 

He  raised  his  eyes  and  saw  a  tall,  fair  girl  dressed  in 
pale  green.  Mr.  Innes  introduced  them. 

"  My  daughter — Sir  Owen  Asher." 

In  the  little  while  which  he  took  to  decide  whether  he 
would  take  tea  or  coffee,  he  thought  that  something  could 
be  said  for  her  figure,  and  he  liked  her  hair,  but,  on  the 
whole,  he  did  not  think  he  cared  for  her.  She  seemed  to 
him  an  unimportant  variety  of  what  he  had  met  before. 
He  said  he  would  take  tea,  and  then  he  changed  his  mind 
and  said  he  would  have  coffee,  but  Evelyn  came  back  witli 
a  cup  of  tea,  and,  perceiving  her  mistake,  she  laughed  ab- 
stractedly. 

"  You  are  going  to  sing  two  songs,  Miss  Innes.  I'm 
glad;  I  hear  your  voice  is  wonderful." 

The  sound  of  his  voice  conveyed  a  penetrating  sense  of 
his  presence.  It  was  the  same  happiness  which  the  very 
sight  of  him  had  awakened  in  her,  and  she  felt  herself 
yielding  to  it  as  to  a  current.  She  was  borne  far  away  into 
mists  of  dream,  where  she  seemed  to  live  a  long  while. 
Time  seemed  to  have  ceased  and  the  outside  world  to  have 
fallen  behind  her.  She  hardly  heard  the  answers  that  she 
made  to  his  questions,  and  when  her  father  called  her,  it 
was  like  returning  after  a  long  absence. 

She  sang  much  more  beautifully  than  he  had  expected, 
and  during  the  preludes  and  fugues  and  the  sonatas  by 
Bach,  which  finished  the  programme,  he  thought  of  her 
voice,  occasionally  questioning  himself  regarding  his  taste 
for  her.  Even  in  this  short  while  he  had  come  to  like  her 
better.  She  had  beautiful  teeth  and  hair,  and  he  liked  her 
figure,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  her  shoulders  sloped  a 
little — perhaps  because  they  did  slope  a  little.  He  noticed, 
whether  her  eyes  wandered  or  remained  fixed,  that  they 


14  EVELYN  INNES. 

returned  to  him,  and  that  their  glance  was  one  of  interro- 
gation, as  if  all  depended  upon  him.  When  the  concert 
was  over  he  was  anxious  to  speak  to  her,  so  that  he  grew 
impatient  with  the  people  who  stopped  his  way.  The  back 
room  was  filled  with  musical  instruments — there  were  two 
harpsichords,  a  clavichord  and  an  organ,  and  Mr.  Innes 
insisted  on  explaining  these  instruments  to  him.  He 
seemed  to  Owen  to  pay  too  slight  a  heed  to  his  daughter's 
voice.  That  she  played  the  viola  da  gamba  very  well  was 
true  enough,  but  what  sense  was  there  in  a  girl  like  that 
playing  an  instrument?  Her  voice  was  her  instrument. 

When  he  was  able  to  get  a  few  words  with  her,  he  told 
her  about  Madame  Savelli.  There  was  no  one  else,  he  said, 
who  could  teach  singing.  She  must  go  to  France  at  once, 
and  he  seemed  to  take  it  for  granted  that  she  might  start  at 
the  end  of  the  week,  if  she  only  made  up  her  mind.  She 
did  not  know  what  answer  to  make,  and  was  painfully  con- 
scious how  silly  she  must  look  standing  before  him  unable 
to  say  a  word.  It  was  no  longer  the  same;  some  of  the 
dream  had  been  swept  aside,  and  reality  had  begun  to  look 
through  it.  Her  intense  consciousness  of  this  tall,  aristo- 
cratic man  frightened  her.  Father  Railston  was  looking 
at  her,  and  the  thought  crossed  her  mind  that  he  would  not 
approve  of  Sir  Owen  Asher.  Feeling  very  uncomfortable, 
she  seized  an  opportunity  of  saying  good-bye  to  a  friend, 
and  escaped  from  Sir  Owen,  leaving  him,  as  she  knew, 
under  the  impression  that  she  was  a  little  fool  not  worth 
taking  further  trouble  about.  But  his  ideas  were  different 
from  all  that  she  had  been  taught,  and  it  would  be  better 
if  she  never  saw  him  again.  She  did  not  doubt,  however, 
that  she  would  see  him  again,  and  when,  two  days  after, 
the  servant  announced  him  and  he  walked  into  the  music- 
room,  she  was  less  surprised  than  her  father. 

The  review,  he  said,  could  not  go  to  press  without  an 
article  on  the  concert,  but  to  do  this  article  he  must  con- 
sult Mr.  Innes,  for  in  the  first  piece,  "  La  my,"  the  viols 
had  seemed  to  him  out  of  tune.  Of  course  this  was  not  so 
— perhaps  one  of  the  players  had  played  a  wrong  note ;  that 
might  be  the  explanation.  But  on  referring  to  the  music, 
Mr.  Innes  discovered  a  better  one.  "  From  the  twelfth  to 
the  fifteenth  century,  writers,"  he  said,  "did  not  consider 
their  music  as  moderns  do.  Now  wo  watch  the  effect  of 


EVELYN  INNES.  15 

a  chord,  a  combination  of  notes  heard  at  the  same  moment, 
the  top  note  of  which  is  the  tune,  but  the  older  writers 
used  their  skill  in  divining  musical  phrases  which  could 
be  followed  simultaneously,  each  one  going  logically  its 
own  way,  irrespective  of  some  temporary  clashing.  They 
considered  their  music  horizontally,  as  the  parts  went  on; 
we  consider  it  vertically,  each  chord  producing  its  impres- 
sion in  turn.  To  them  all  the  parts  were  of  eqxial  impor- 
tance. Their  music  was  a  purely  decorative  interweaving 
of  melodies.  Now  we  have  a  tune  with  accompanying 
parts." 

"  What  a  wonderful  knowledge  of  music  your  father 
has,  Miss  Innes !  " 

"  Yes,  father  reads  old  MSS.  that  no  one  else  can  de- 
cipher." 

"  These  discords  happened,"  Mr.  Innes  said,  as  he  went 
to  the  harpsichord,  "  when  a  composition  was  based  upon 
some  old  plain  song  melody,  the  notes  of  which  could  not 
be  altered.  Then  the  musician  did  not  scruple  to  write 
in  one  of  the  other  parts  the  same  note  altered  by  a  sharp 
or  a  flat  to  suit  the  passing  requirement  of  the  musical 
phrase  allotted  to  that  part.  You  could  thus  have  together, 
say  an  F  natural  in  one  part  and  an  F  sharp  in  another. 
This  to  modern  ears,  not  trained  to  understanding  the 
inclining  of  the  two  parts,  is  intolerable." 

While  he  spoke  of  the  relative  fineness  of  the  ancient 
and  modern  ear,  maintaining  that  the  reason  ancient  sing- 
ers could  sing  without  an  accompaniment  was  that  they 
were  trained  to  sing  from  the  monochord,  Owen  consid- 
ered the  figure  of  this  tall,  fair  girl,  and  wondered  if  she 
would  elect  to  remain  with  her  father,  playing  the  viola 
da  gamba  in  Dulwich,  or  bolt  with  a  manager — that  was 
what  generally  happened.  Her  father  was  a  most  inter- 
esting old  man,  a  genius  in  his  way,  but  just  such  an  one 
as  might  prove  his  daughter's  ruin.  He  would  keep  her 
singing  the  old  music,  perhaps  marry  her  to  a  clerk,  and 
she  would  be  a  fat,  prosaic  mother  of  three  in  five  years. 

However  this  might  be,  he,  Owen,  was  interested  in  her 
voice,  and,  if  he  had  never  met  Georgina,  he  might  have 
liked  this  girl.  It  would  be  better  that  he  should  take  her 
tnvay  than  that  she  should  go  away  with  a  manager  who 
would  rob  and  beat  her.  But,  if  he  were  to  take  her  away, 


16  EVELYN  INNES. 

he  would  be  tied  to  her;  it  would  be  like  marrying  her. 
A  little  terror  took  him,  and  he  wondered  if  he  were  about 
to  lose  Georgina,  or  if  she  were  only  trying  to  make  him 
jealous.  Perhaps  he  could  not  do  better  than  make  her 
jealous.  For  that  purpose  this  young  girl  was  just  the 
thing. 

Moreover,  he  was  interested  in  the  revival  of  Palestrina 
at  St.  Joseph's,  and  he  liked  Ferrabosco's  pavane.  He 
would  like  to  have  a  harpsichord ;  even  if  he  did  not  play 
on  it  much,  it  would  be  a  beautiful,  characteristic  piece  of 
furniture.  .  .  .  And  it  would  be  a  good  idea  to  ask  Mr. 
Innes  to  bring  all  his  queer  instruments  to  Berkeley 
Square,  and  give  a  concert  to-morrow  night  after  his  din- 
ner-party. His  friends  had  bored  him  with  Hungarian 
bands,  and  the  improvisations  the  bands  had  been  impro- 
vising for  the  last  ten  years,  and  he  saw  no  reason  why 
he  should  not  bore  them,  just  for  a  change,  with  Mr.  Innes. 

At  this  moment  his  reflections  were  interrupted  by  .M  r. 
Innes,  who  wanted  to  know  if  he  did  not  agree  with  him 
regarding  the  necessity  for  the  re-introduction  of  the  mono- 
chord,  if  the  sixteenth  century  masses,  were  ever  to  be  sung 
again  properly.  All  this  was  old  story  to  Evelyn.  In  a 
sort  of  dream,  through  a  sort  of  mist,  she  saw  the  embroid- 
ered waistcoat  and  the  gold  moustache,  and  when  the 
small,  grey,  smiling  eyes  were  raised  from  her  father's  face 
and  looked  at  her  she  experienced  a  gentle  sense  of  de- 
licious bewilderment  and  illusion. 

She  did  not  know  how  it  would  all  happen,  but  her  life 
seemed  for  the  first  time  to  have  come  to  a  definite  issue. 
The  very  moment  he  had  spoken  of  Madame  Savelli,  the 
great  singing  mistress,  it  was  as  if  a  light  had  begun  in 
her  brain,  and  she  saw  a  faint  horizon  line;  she  seemed 
to  see  Paris  from  afar;  she  knew  she  would  go  there  to 
study,  and  that  night  she  had  fallen  asleep  listening  to  the 
applause  of  three  thousand  hands. 

But  she  did  not  like  to  stand  before  him,  offering  him 
first  the  cup  of  tea,  then  the  milk  and  sugar,  then  the  cake, 
and  bread  and  butter.  Her  repugnance  had  nothing  to  do 
with  him;  it  was  an  obscure  feeling,  quite  incomprehen- 
sible to  herself.  When  he  looked  up  she  answered  him 
with  a  smile  which  she  felt  to  be  mysterious,  and  he  per- 
ceived its  mystery,  for  he  compared  it  to  the  hesitating 


EVELYN  INNES.  17 

smile  of  the  Monna  Lisa,  a  print  of  which  hung  on  the 
wall.  But  the  remark  increased  her  foreboding  and  pre- 
monition. And  she  was  sorry  for  her  father,  who  was 
saying  that  he  hoped  to  send  her  abroad  in  the  spring ;  that 
he  would  have  done  so  before,  but  she  was  studying  har- 
mony with  him.  And  she  could  see  that  Owen  was  bored. 
He  was  only  staying  on  in  the  hope  of  speaking  to  her, 
but  she  knew  that  her  father  was  not  going  out,  so  there 
was  no  chance  of  their  having  a  few  words  together.  His 
Invitation  to  Mr.  Innes  to  bring  the  instruments  to  Lon- 
don, and  give  a  concert  to-morrow  night  at  Berkeley 
Square,  he  had  reserved  till  the  moment  he  had  got  up  to 
go.  Mr.  Innes  was  taken  aback.  He  doubted  if  there 
would  be  time  to  get  the  instruments  to  London.  ^  But 
Owen  said  that  all  that  was  necessary  was  a  Pickford  van, 
and  that  if  he  would  say  "  Yes,"  the  van  and  a  competent 
staff  of  packers  would  be  at  Dulwich  in  the  morning,  and 
would  take  all  further  trouble  off  his  hands.  The  question 
was  debated.  Mr.  Innes  thought  the  instruments  had  bet- 
ter go  by  train,  and  Owen  could  not  help  smiling  when  he 
said  that  he  would  arrive  with  the  big  harpsichord  and 
Evelyn  about  nine  or  half-past. 

She  had  two  evening  gowns — a  pale  green  silk  and  a 
white.  The  pale  green  looked  very  nice;  it  had  cost  her 
three  pounds.  The  white  had  nearly  ruined  her,  but  it 
had  seemed  to  suit  her  so  well  that  she  had  not  been  able 
to  resist,  and  had  paid  five  pounds  ten,  a  great  deal  for 
her  to  spend  on  a  dress.  Its  great  fault  was  that  it  soiled 
at  the  least  touch.  She  had  worn  it  three  times,  and  could 
not  wear  it  again  till  it  had  been  cleaned.  It  was  a  pity, 
but  there  was  no  help  for  it.  She  would  have  to  wear  the 
green,  and  to  console  herself  she  thought  of  the  compli- 
ments she  had  had  for  it  at  different  parties.  But  these 
seemed  insignificant  when  she  thought  of  the  party  she 
was  going  to  to-night. 

She  had  never  been  to  Berkeley  Square,  and  expected  to 
be  surprised.  But  it  lay  in  a  hollow,  a  dignified,  secluded 
square,  exactly  as  she  had  imagined  it.  Nor  did  the  great 
doorway,  and  the  carpet  that  stretched  across  the  pave- 
ment for  her  to  walk  upon,  surprise  her,  nor  the  lines  of 
footmen,  nor  the  natural  grace  of  the  wide  staircase.  She 
seemed  to  have  seen  it  all  before,  only  she  could  not  re- 


18  EVELYN  INNES. 

member  where.  It  came  back  to  her  like  a  dream.  She 
seemed  to  recognise  the  pictures  of  the  goddesses,  the  Holy 
Families  and  the  gold  mirrors;  and  lifting  her  eyes,  she 
saw  Owen  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  and  he  smiled  so  fa- 
miliarly, that  it  seemed  strange  to  think  that  this  was  only 
the  third  time  she  had  seen  him. 

He  introduced  her  father  to  a  fashionable  musician, 
whose  pavanes  and  sonatas  were  composed  with  that  lack 
of  matter  and  excess  of  erudition  which  delight  the  ama- 
teur and  irritate  the  artist,  and  he  walked  down  the  rooms 
looking  for  seats  where  they  could  talk  undisturbed  for  a 
few  minutes.  He  was  nervous  lest  Georgina  should  find 
him  sitting  with  this  girl  in  an  intimate  corner,  but  he  did 
not  expect  her  for  another  half-hour,  and  could  not  resist 
the  temptation.  He  was  curious  to  know  how  far  Evelyn 
acquiesced  in  the  obscure  lot  which  her  father  imposed 
upon  her,  to  play  the  viola  da  gamba,  and  sing  old  music, 
instead  of  singing  for  her  own  fame  upon  the  stage.  But 
had  she  a  great  voice?  If  she  had,  he  would  like  to  help 
her.  The  discovery  of  a  new  prima  donna  would  be  a  fine 
feather  in  his  cap.  Above  all,  he  was  also  curious  to  find 
out  if  she  were  the  innocent  maiden  she  appeared  to  be, 
or  if  she  had  had  flirtations  with  the  clerks  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood, and  he  found  his  opportunity  to  speak  to  her 
on  this  subject  in  the  first  line  of  a  French  song  she  was 
going  to  sing: — 

"  Que  vous  me  coutez  cher,  mon  coeur,  pour  voa 
plais^rs." 

His  appreciation  of  her  changed  every  moment.  Truly 
her  eyes  lit  up  with  a  beautiful  light,  and  her  remarks 
about  the  length  of  our  payment  for  our  pleasures  re- 
vealed an  apprehension  which  he  had  not  credited  her 
with.  But  he  was  alarmed  at  the  quickness  with  which 
they  had  strayed  to  the  very  verge  of  things.  From  tho 
other  room  they  would  seem  very  intimate,  sitting  on  a 
sofa  together,  and  he  was  expecting  Georgina  every  minute. 
If  she  were  to  see  them,  it  would  lead  to  further  discussion, 
and  supply  her  with  an  excuse.  But  his  curiosity  was 
kindled,  and  while  he  considered  how  he  could  lead  Evelyn 
into  confidences,  he  saw  her  arm  trembling  through  the 
gauze  sleeve,  for  it  seemed  to  her  that  all  that  was  happen- 
ing now  had  happened  before.  The  walls  covered  with 


EVELYN  INNES.  19 

red  pleated  silk,  the  bracket-clocks,  the  brocade-covered 
chairs:  where  had  she  seen  them?  And  Owen's  grey  eyes 
fixed  upon  her:  where  had  she  seen  them?  In  a  dream 
perhaps.  She  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  experienced  the 
sensation  of  having  already  lived  through  a  scene  that  was 
happening  at  the  very  moment.  He  did  not  seem  to  hear; 
he  seemed  expecting  someone;  and  then  the  vision  re- 
turned to  her  again,  and  she  could  not  but  think  that  she 
had  known  Sir  Owen  long  ago,  but  how  and  where  she 
could  not  tell.  At  that  moment  she  noticed  his  absent- 
mindedness,  and  it  was  suddenly  flashed  upon  her  that  he 
was  in  love  with  some  woman  and  was  waiting  for  her, 
and  almost  at  the  same  moment  she  saw  a  tall,  red-haired 
woman  cross  the  further  room.  The  woman  paused  in 
the  doorway,  as  if  looking  for  someone.  She  nodded  to 
Owen  and  engaged  in  conversation  with  a  group  of  men 
standing  by  the  fireplace.  Something  told  Evelyn  that  this 
was  the  woman  Owen  was  in  love  with,  and  the  sudden  for- 
mality of  his  manner  convinced  her  that  she  was  right. 
He  said  that  he  must  go  and  see  after  his  other  guests, 
and  as  she  expected,  he  went  straight  to  the  woman  with 
the  red  hair.  But  she  did  not  leave  her  friends.  After 
shaking  hands  with  Owen,  she  continued  talking  to  them, 
and  he  was  left  out  of  the  conversation. 

The  concert  began  with  a  sonata  for  the  harpsichord 
and  the  viola  da  gamba,  and  then  Evelyn  sang  her  two 
songs.  She  sang  for  Owen,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  she 
was  telling  him  that  she  was  sorry  that  it  had  all  hap- 
pened as  it  had  happened,  and  that  he  must  go  away  and 
be  happy  with  the  woman  he  loved.  She  did  not  think 
that  she  sang  particularly  well,  but  Owen  came  and  told 
her  that  she  had  sung  charmingly,  and  in  their  eyes  were 
strange  questions  and  excuses,  and  an  avowal  of  regret  that 
things  were  not  different.  Slim  women  in  delicious  gowns 
glided  up  and  praised  her,  but  she  did  not  think  that  they 
had  been  as  much  impressed  by  her  singing  as  they  said; 
distinguished  men  were  introduced  to  her,  and  she  felt  she 
had  nothing  to  say  to  them;  and  looking  round  the  circle 
of  men  and  women  she  saw  Owen  in  the  doorway,  and  no- 
ticed that  his  eyes  were  restless  and  constantly  wandered 
in  the  direction  of  the  tall  woman  with  the  red  hair,  who 
sat  calmly  talking  to  her  friends,  never  noticing  him.  He 


20  EVELYN  1NNES. 

seemed  waiting  for  a  look  that  never  came;  his  glances 
were  furtive  and  quickly  withdrawn,  as  if  he  feared  he 
was  being  watched.  When  she  got  up  to  leave,  Owen 
came  forward  and  spoke  to  her,  but  she  barely  replied,  and 
left  the  room  alone.  Evelyn  saw  all  this,  and  she  was  sur- 
prised when  Owen  came  rapidly  through  the  room  and  sat 
down  by  her.  He  was  painfully  absent-minded,  and  so 
nervous  that  he  did  not  seem  to  know  what  he  was  saying; 
indeed,  that  was  the  only  excuse  she  could  make  for  his 
remarks.  She  hardly  recognised  this  man  as  the  man  she 
had  hitherto  known.  She  hated  all  his  sentiments  and  his 
ideas;  she  thought  them  horrid,  and  was  glad  when  her 
father  came  to  tell  her  it  was  time  for  her  to  go. 

"  You  didn't  sing  well,"  he  said,  as  they  went  home. 
"  What  was  the  matter  with  you  ?  " 

Owen  and  the  red-haired  lady  seemed  to  fall  behind 
this  last  misfortune.  If  she  had  lost  her  voice  she  was  no 
longer  herself,  and  as  she  went  to  her  teaching  she  saw 
herself  a  music  mistress  to  the  end  of  her  days. 

But  on  Sunday  morning  she  came  downstairs  singing, 
and  Mr.  Innes  heard  a  future  prima  donna  in  her  voice. 
Her  face  lit  up,  and  she  said,  "  Do  you  think  so,  dear  ?  It 
was  unlucky  I  sang  so  badly  the  other  night.  I  seemed  to 
have  no  voice  at  all." 

He  told  her  that  there  were  times  when  her  mother 
suddenly  lost  her  voice. 

"  But,  father,  you  are  not  fit  to  go  out,  and  can't  go  out 
in  that  state." 

"What  is  the  matter?"  and  his  hand  went  to  his  shirt 
collar. 

"  No,  your  necktie  is  all  right.  Ah !  there  you've  un- 
tied it;  I'll  tie  it  for  you.  It's  your  coat  that  wants 
brushing." 

The  black  frock  coat  which  he  wore  on  Sundays  wa.s 
too  small  for  him.  If  he  buttoned  it,  it  wrinkled  round 
the  waist  and  across  the  chest ;  if  he  left  it  open,  its  meagre 
width  and  the  shortness  of  the  skirts  (they  were  the  fashion 
of  more  than  ten  years  ago)  made  it  seem  ridiculous.  At 
the  elbows  the  cloth  was  shiny  with  long  wear,  and  the 
cuffs  were  frayed.  His  hat  was  as  antiquated  as  his  coat. 
It  was  a  mere  pulp,  greasy  inside  and  brown  outside;  the 
brim  was  too  small,  it  was  too  low  in  the  crown,  and  after 


EVELYN  INNES.  £1 

the  severest  brushing  it  remained  rough  like  a  blanket. 
Evelyn  handed  it  back  to  him  in  despair.  He  thanked  his 
daughter,  put  it  on  his  head,  and  forgot  its  appearance. 
But  in  spite  of  shabby  coat  and  shabbier  hat,  Mr.  Innes 
remained  free  from  suspicion  of  vulgarity — the  sad  dignity 
of  his  grey  face  and  the  dreams  that  haunted  his  eyes  saved 
him  from  that. 

"  And  whose  mass  are  you  going  to  play  to-day  ? "  she 
asked  him. 

"  A  mass  by  Hummel,  in  B ;  on  Thursday,  a  mass  by 
Dr.  Gladstone;  and  next  Sunday,  Mozart's  Twelfth,  be- 
loved of  Father  Gordon  and  village  choirs.  I  wonder  if  he 
will  allow  the  Reproaches  to  be  sung  in  Holy  Week?  He 
will  insist  on  the  expense  of  the  double  choir." 

"  But,  father,  do  you  think  that  the  congregation  of 
St.  Joseph's  is  one  that  would  care  for  the  refinement  of 
Palestrina?  Would  you  not  require  a  cultivated  West-end 
audience — the  Oratory  or  Farm  Street  ?  " 

"  That  is  Sir  Owen's  opinion." 

"  I  never  heard  him  say  so." 

How  had  she  come  to  repeat  anything  she  had  heard 
him  say?  Moreover,  why  had  she  said  that  she  had  not 
heard  him  say  so?  And  Evelyn  argued  with  herself  until 
the  train  reached  their  station — it  was  one  of  those  absurd 
little  mental  complications,  the  infinitesimal  life  that  flour- 
ishes deep  in  the  soul. 

A  little  way  down  a  side  street,  a  few  yards  from  the 
main  thoroughfare,  where  the  roads  branched,  the  great 
gaunt  fagade  of  St.  Joseph's  pointed  against  a  yellow  sky. 
Its  foundation  had  been  laid  and  its  walls  built  by  a  priest, 
who  had  collected  large  sums  of  money  in  America,  and 
whose  desire  had  been  to  have  the  largest  church  that  could 
be  built  for  the  least  money,  in  the  shortest  possible  time. 
The  result  was  the  great,  sprawling,  grey  stone  building 
with  a  desolate  spire,  now  fading  into  the  darkness  of  the 
snow-storm.  Money  had  run  short.  The  church  had  not 
been  completed  when  its  founder  died;  then  another  ener- 
getic priest  had  raised  another  subscription.  Doors  and 
stained  glass  had  been  added,  and,  for  a  while,  St.  Joseph's 
had  become  a  floiirishing  parish  church,  supported  by  vari- 
ous suburbs,  and  projects  for  the  completion  of  its  interior 
decoration  had  begun  to  be  entertained;  but  while  these 


22  EVELYN  INNKS. 

projects  were  under  consideration,  the  suburbs  had  ac- 
quired churches  of  their  own,  and  the  congregation  of  St. 
Joseph's  had  dwindled  until  it  had  lost  all  means  of  sup- 
port, except  the  meagre  assistance  it  received  from  the 
poor  Irish  and  Italians  of  the  neighbourhood.  There  had 
been  talk  of  closing  the  church,  and  it  would  have  had  to 
be  closed  if  the  Jesuits  had  not  accepted  the  mission.  An- 
other subscription  had  been  started,  but  the  greater  part 
of  this  third  subscription  the  Jesuits  had  spent  upon  their 
schools,  so  the  fate  of  St.  Joseph's  seemed  to  be  to  re- 
main, as  someone  had  said,  an  unfinished  ruin.  Their  re- 
sources were  exhausted,  and  they  surveyed  the  barren  aisles, 
dreaming  of  the  painting  and  mosaics  they  would  put  up 
when  the  promises  of  Father  Gordon  were  realised.  For 
it  was  understood  that  their  fortunes  should  be  retrieved 
by  his  musical  abilities,  and  his  competence  to  select  the 
most  attractive  masses.  Father  Gordon  was  a  type  often 
found  among  amateur  musicians — a  man  with  a  slight 
technical  knowledge,  a  good  ear,  a  nice  voice,  and  abso- 
lutely no  taste  whatever.  His  natural  ear  was  for  obvious 
rhythm,  his  taste  coincided  with  the  popular  taste,  and  as 
the  necessity  of  attracting  a  congregation  was  paramount, 
it  is  easy  to  imagine  how  easily  he  conceded  to  his  natural 
inclinations.  And  the  arguments  with  which  he  rebutted 
those  of  his  opponents  were  unanswerable,  that  whatever 
moved  the  heart  to  the  love  of  God  was  right;  that  if  the 
plain  chant  failed  to  help  the  soul  to  aspiration,  we  \vriv 
justified  in  substituting  Rossini's  Stabat  Mater,  or  what- 
ever other  musical  idiom  the  neighbourhood  craved  for. 

Religious  rite,  according  to  Father  Gordon,  should 
conform  to  the  artistic  taste  of  the  congregation,  and  IK; 
urged,  with  some  force,  that  the  artistic  taste  of  South- 
wark  stood  on  quite  as  high  a  level  as  that  of  May  fair. 
To  get  a  Mayfair  audience  they  had  only  to  follow  tin 
taste  of  Southwark.  And  so,  under  his  guidance,  the  .!<•- 
uitg  had  increased  their  orchestra  and  employed  the  best 
tenors  that  could  be  hired.  Nevertheless,  their  progress 
was  slow.  Father  Gordon  pleaded  patience.  The  neigh- 
bourhood was  unfashionable;  it  was  difficult  to  persuade 
their  friends  to  come  so  far.  "Mr.  IMIHS  answered  that  if 
they  gave  him  a  choir  of  forty-five  voices — he  could  do 
nothing  with  less — the  West-end  would  come  at  once  to 


EVELYN  1NNES.  23 

hear  Palestrina.  The  distance,  and  the  fact  of  the  church 
being  in  a  slum,  he  maintained,  would  not  be  in  itself  a 
drawback.  Half  the  success  of  Bayreuth,  he  urged,  is 
owing  to  its  being  so  far  off.  And  this  plan,  too,  seemed 
to  possess  some  elements  of  success,  and  so  the  Jesuits 
hesitated  between  very  divergent  methods  by  which  the 
same  result  might  be  attained. 

A  few  flakes  of  snow  were  falling,  and  Evelyn  and  her 
father  put  up  their  umbrellas  as  they  crossed  the  road  to 
the  church.  Three  steps  led  to  the  pointed  door  above 
which  was  the  figure  of  the  patron  saint. 

.The  nakedness  of  the  unfinished  and  undecorated 
church  was  hidden  in  the  twilight  of  the  approaching 
storm,  and  Evelyn  trembled  as  she  walked  up  the  aisle,  so 
menacing  seemed  the  darkness  that  descended  from  the 
sky.  The  stained  glass,  blackened  by  the  smoke  of  the 
factory  chimneys,  let  in  but  little  light,  the  aisles  were 
plunged  in  darkness,  and  kneeling  in  her  favourite  place 
the  ineffectual  gaslight  seemed  to  her  like  painted  flames 
on  a  dark  background.  The  side  chapels  which  opened  on 
to  the  aisles  were  shut  off  by  no  ornamental  screens,  in- 
deed, the  only  piece  of  decoration  seemed  to  be  the  fine 
modern  ironwork  which  veiled  the  sanctuary. 

She  opened  her  prayer  book,  but  in  the  shadow  of  the 
pillar  where  she  was  kneeling  there  was  not  sufficient  light 
for  her  to  read,  so  she  bent  her  face  upon  her  hands,  intent 
upon  losing  herself  in  prayer.  She  abased  herself  before 
her  Father  in  Heaven;  attaining  once  more  the  wonder- 
ful human  moment  when  the  creature  who  crouches  on  this 
rim  of  earth  implores  pardon  for  her  trespass  from  the 
beneficent  Creator  of  things.  But  to-day  her  devotional 
mood  was  interrupted  by  sudden  thought  and  sensation  of 
Owen's  presence;  she  was  forced  to  look  up,  and  con- 
vinced that  he  was  very  near  her,  she  sought  him  amid 
the  crowd  of  people  who  sat  and  knelt  in  front  of  her, 
blackening  the  dusk,  a  vague  darkness  in  which  she  could 
at  first  distinguish  nothing  but  an  occasional  white  plume 
and  a  bald  head.  But  her  eyes  grew  accustomed  to  the 
darkness,  and  above  the  uninteresting  backs  of  middle- 
aged  men  she  recognised  his  thin  sharp  shoulders.  She 
had  been  compelled  to  look  up  from  her  prayers,  and  she 
wondered  if  he  had  been  thinking  of  her.  If  so,  it  was 


24  EVELYN  1NNES. 

very  wrong  of  him  to  interrupt  her  at  her  prayers.  But 
a  sensation  of  pleasure  arose  spontaneously  in  her.  At 
that  moment  he  had  to  remove  his  hat  from  the  chair  on 
which  he  had  placed  it,  and  she  noticed  the  gold  stud  links 
in  his  large  shirt  cuffs,  the  rough  material  of  which  the 
coat  was  made,  and  how  well  it  lay  along  the  thin  arm. 
She  imagined  the  look  of  vexation  on  the  grave  interesting 
face,  and  laughed  a  little  to  herself.  What  was  the  poor 
woman  to  do?  She  had  a  right  to  her  chair.  But  she 
did  look  so  frightened,  and  was  visibly  perturbed  by  the 
presence  of  so  fine  a  gentleman.  Evelyn  knew  the  woman 
by  sight — a  curious  thin  and  crooked  creature,  who  wore 
a  strange  bonnet  and  a  little  black  mantle,  and  walked  up 
the  church,  her  hands  crossed  like  a  doll.  .  .  . 

No  doubt  he  had  driven  all  the  way  from  Berkeley 
Square.  She  could  see  him  leaning  back  in  his  brougham, 
humming  various  music,  or  plaintively  thinking  about  the 
lady  with  the  red  hair,  who  did  not  care  for  him.  Her 
breath  caught  her  in  the  throat.  That  was  the  reason  why 
he  had  come  to  St.  Joseph's.  It  was  all  over  with  the  red- 
haired  lady,  and  it  was  for  her  that  he  had  come  to  St. 
Joseph's!  But  that  could  not  be.  .  .  .  She  saw  him  mov- 
ing in  rich  and  elegant  society,  where  everyone  had  a  title, 
and  the  narrowness  of  her  life  compared  with  his  dis- 
mayed her.  It  was  impossible  that  he  could  care  for  her. 
She  was  remaining  in  Dulwich,  with  nothing  but  a  few 
music  lessons  to  look  forward  to.  ...  But  when  she 
reached  the  operatic  stage  her  life  would  be  like  his,  ami 
the  vision  of  her  future  passed  before  her  eyes — diamonds 
in  stars,  baskets  of  wonderful  flowers,  applause,  and  the 
perfume  of  a  love  story,  swinging  like  a  censer  over  it  all. 

At  that  moment  the  priests  entered;  mass  began.  She 
opened  her  prayer  book,  but,  however  firmly  she  fixed  her 
thoughts  in  prayer,  they  sprang  back,  without  her  knowing 
it,  to  Owen  and  the  red-haired  woman,  with  the  smooth, 
cream-coloured  shoulders.  Without  being  aware  of  it,  she 
was  looking  at  him,  and  it  was  such  a  delight  to  think 
of  him  that  she  could  not  refrain.  His  chair  was  the 
last  on  the  third  line  from  the  altar  rail,  and  she  noticed 
that  he  wore  patent  leather  shoes;  the  hitching  of  the  dark 
jrrpy  trousers  displayed  a  silk  sock;  but  he  suddenly  un- 
crossed his  legs,  and  assumed  a  less  negligent  attitude. 


EVELYN  INNES.  25 

In  a  sudden  little  melancholy  she  remembered  how  he  had 
watched  the  woman  with  the  red  hair,  and  the  determined 
indifference  of  this  woman's  face  as  she  left  the  room. 
Immediately  after  she  was  amused  at  the  way  in  which 
his  face  expressed  his  opinion  of  the  music,  and  she  had  to 
admit  to  herself  that  he  listened  as  if  he  understood  it. 

It  was  not  until  her  father  began  to  play  the  offertory, 
one  of  Schubert's  beautiful  inspirations,  that  she  noticed 
the  look  of  real  delight  that  held  the  florid  profile  till  the 
last  note,  and  for  some  seconds  after.  "  He  certainly  does 
love  music,"  she  thought;  and  when  the  bell  rang  for  the 
Elevation,  she  bowed  her  head  and  became  aware  of  the 
Real  Presence.  When  it  rang  a  second  time,  she  felt  life 
stifle  in  her.  When  it  rang  a  third  time,  she  again  be- 
came conscious  of  time  and  place.  But  the  sensation  of 
awe  which  the  accomplishment  of  the  mystery  had  inspired 
was  dissipated  in  the  tumult  of  a  very  hideous  Agnus  Dei, 
in  the  voice  of  a  certain  concert  singer,  who  seemed  deter- 
mined to  shout  down  the  organ.  Evelyn  had  some  diffi- 
culty in  keeping  her  countenance,  so  plain  was  the  ex- 
pression of  amazement  upon  the  profile  in  front  of  her. 

Then  the  book  was  carried  from  the  right  to  the  left 
side  of  the  altar,  and  when  the  priest  had  read  the  Gospel, 
she  began  once  more  to  ask  herself  the  reason  that  had 
brought  Sir  Owen  to  St.  Joseph's.  The  manner  in  which 
he  genuflected  before  the  altar  told  her  that  he  was  a  Cath- 
olic; perhaps  he  had  come  to  St.  Joseph's  merely  to  hear 
mass. 

"  I  have  come  to  see  your  father." 

"You  will  find  him  in  the  organ  loft.  .  .  .  But  he'll 
be  down  presently." 

And  at  the  end  of  the  church,  in  a  corner  out  of  the 
way  of  the  crowd,  they  waited  for  Mr.  Innes,  and  she  learnt 
almost  at  once,  from  his  face  and  the  remarks  that  he  ad- 
dressed to  her,  that  it  was  not  for  her  that  he  had  come  to 
St.  Joseph's.  His  carriage  was  waiting,  he  told  the  coach- 
man to  follow;  all  three  tramped  through  the  snow  to- 
gether to  the  station.  In  this  miserable  walk  she  learnt 
that  he  had  decided  to  go  for  a  trip  round  the  world  in  his 
yacht,  and  expected  to  be  away  for  nearly  a  year.  As  he 
bade  them  good-bye  he  looked  at  her,  and  his  eyes  seemed 
to  say  he  was  sorry  that  it  was  so,  that  he  wished  it  were 


2G  EVELYN  INNES. 

otherwise.  She  felt  that  if  she  had  been  able  to  ask  him 
to  stay  he  would  have  stayed;  but,  of  course,  that  was  im- 
possible, and  the  last  she  saw  of  him  was  as  he  turned, 
just  before  getting  into  his  brougham,  to  tell  her  father 
that  the  best  critic  of  the  Review  should  attend  the  con- 
certs, and  that  he  hoped  that  what  he  would  write  would 
bring  some  people  of  taste  to  hear  them. 


III. 

THE  name  was  no  indication.  None  remembered  that 
Dowlands  was  the  name  of  Henry  the  Eighth's  favourite 
lute  player,  and  there  was  nothing  in  the  snug  masonry 
to  suggest  an  asstheticism  of  any  kind.  The  dulcimers, 
lutes  and  virginals  surprised  the  visitor  coming  in  from  the 
street,  and  he  stayed  his  steps  as  he  might  on  the  threshold 
of  a  fairy  land. 

The  villas,  of  which  Dowlands  was  one,  were  a  builder's 
experiment.  They  had  been  built  in  the  hopes  of  attract- 
ing wealthy  business  West-end  shopkeepers;  but  Dulwich 
had  failed  to  become  a  fashionable  suburb.  Many  had 
remained  empty,  and  when  Mr.  Innes  had  entered 
into  negotiations  with  the  house  agents,  they  declared 
themselves  willing  to  entertain  all  his  proposals,  and  finally 
he  had  acquired  a  lease  at  a  greatly  reduced  rental. 

In  accordance  with  his  and  Mrs.  Innes's  wishes,  the 
house  had  been  considerably  altered.  Partition  walls  had 
been  taken  away,  and  practically  the  whole  ground  floor 
converted  into  class-rooms,  leaving  free  only  one  little 
room  at  the  back  where  they  had  their  meals.  During 
his  wife's  lifetime  the  house  suited  thrir  n-quin-iiK  nt-. 
The  train  service  from  Victoria  was  frequent,  and  on  the 
back  of  their  notepaper  was  printed  a  little  map,  whereby 
pupils  coming  and  going  from  the  station  could  find  their 
way.  On  the  second  floor  was  Mr.  Innes's  workshop,  when* 
he  restored  the  old  instruments  or  made  new  ones  after 
the  old  models.  There  was  Evelyn's  bedroom — hor  mother 
had  re-furnished  it  before  she  died — and  she  often  sat 


EVELYN  INNES.  27 

there;  it  was,  in  truth,  the  most  habitable  room  in  the 
house.  There  was  Evelyn's  old  nursery,  now  an  unoccu- 
pied room;  and  there  were  two  other  empty  rooms.  She 
had  tried  to  convert  one  into  a  little  oratory.  She  had 
placed  there  a  statue  of  the  Virgin,  and  hung  a  crucifix  on 
the  wall,  and  bought  a  prie-Dieu  and  put  it  there.  But 
the  room  was  too  lonely,  and  she  found  she  could  say  her 
prayers  more  fervently  by  her  bedside.  Their  one  servant 
slept  downstairs  in  a  room  behind  the  kitchen.  So  the 
house  often  had  the  appearance  of  a  deserted  house;  and 
Evelyn,  when  she  returned  from  London,  where  she  went 
almost  daily  to  give  music  lessons,  often  paused  on  the 
threshold,  afraid  to  enter  till  her  ear  detected  some  slight 
sound  of  her  servant  at  work.  Then  she  cried,  "  Is  that 
you,  Margaret  ? "  and  she  advanced  cautiously,  till  Mar- 
garet answered,  "  Yes,  miss." 

The  last  summer  and  autumn  had  been  the  pleasantest 
in  her  life  since  her  mother's  death.  Her  pupils  interested 
her — she  had  some  six  or  seven.  Her  flow  of  bright  talk, 
her  eager  manner,  her  beautiful  playing  of  the  viola  da 
gamba,  her  singing  of  certain  old  songs,  her  mother's  fame, 
and  the  hopes  she  entertained  of  one  day  achieving  success 
on  the  stage  made  her  a  heroine  among  her  little  circle  of 
friends.  Her  father  was  a  remarkable  man,  but  he  seemed 
to  her  the  most  wonderful  of  men.  It  was  exciting  to  go 
to  London  with  him,  to  bid  him  good-bye  at  Victoria — she 
to  her  lessons,  he  to  his — to  meet  him  in  the  evenings,  and 
in  conjunction  to  arrange  the  programme  of  their  next  con- 
cert. These  interests  and  ambitions  had  sufficed  to  fill  her 
life,  and  to  keep  the  greater  ambition  out  of  sight;  and 
since  her  mother's  death  she  had  lived  happily  with  her 
father,  helping  him  in  his  work.  But  lately  things  had 
changed.  Some  of  her  pupils  had  gone  abroad,  others  had 
married,  and  interest  in  the  concerts  declined.  For  a  little 
while  the  old  music  had  seemed  as  if  it  were  going  to  at- 
tract sufficient  attention,  but  already  their  friends  had 
heard  enough,  and  Mr.  Innes  had  been  compelled  to  post- 
pone the  next,  which  had  been  announced  for  the  begin- 
ning of  February.  There  would  be  no  concert  now  till 
March,  perhaps  not  even  then;  so  there  was  nothing  for 
her  to  look  forward  to,  and  the  wet  windy  weather  which 
swept  the  suburb  contributed  to  her  disheartenment.  The 


28  EVELYN  INNES. 

only  event  of  the  day  seemed  to  be  her  father's  departure 
in  the  morning.  Immediately  after  breakfast  he  tied  up 
his  music  in  a  brown  paper  parcel  and  put  his  violin  into 
its  case;  he  spoke  of  missing  his  train,  and,  from  the  win- 
dows of  the  music-room,  she  saw  him  hastening  down  the 
road.  She  had  asked  him  if  there  were  no  MSS.  he  wished 
copied  in  the  British  Museum;  absent-mindedly  he  had 
answered  "No;"  and,  drumming  on  the  glass  with  her 
fingers,  she  wondered  how  the  day  would  pass.  There  was 
nothing  to  do;  there  was  nothing  even  to  think  about. 
She  was  tired  of  thinking  that  a  pupil  might  come  back 
— that  a  new  pupil  might  at  any  moment  knock  at  the  door. 
She  was  tired  of  wondering  if  her  father's  concerts  would 
ever  pay — if  the  firm  of  music  publishers  with  whom  he 
was  now  in  treaty  would  come  to  terms  and  enable  him  to 
give  a  concert  in  their  hall,  or  if  they  would  break  off 
negotiations,  as  many  had  done  before.  And,  more  than 
of  everything  else,  she  was  tired  of  thinking  if  her  father 
would  ever  have  money  to  send  her  abroad,  or  if  she  would 
remain  in  Dulwich  always. 

One  morning,  as  she  was  returning  from  Dulwich, 
where  she  had  gone  to  pay  the  weekly  bills,  she  discovered 
that  she  was  no  longer  happy.  She  stopped,  and,  with  an 
empty  heart,  saw  the  low-lying  fields  with  poultry  pens, 
and  the  hobbled  horse  grazing  by  the  broken  hedge.  The 
old  village  was  her  prison,  and  she  longed  as  a  bird  longs. 
She  had  trundled  her  hoop  there;  she  ought  to  love  it,  but 
she  didn't,  and,  looking  on  its  too  familiar  aspect,  her  ach- 
ing heart  asked  if  it  would  ever  pass  from  her.  It  seemed 
to  her  that  she  had  not  strength  nor  will  to  return  home. 
A  little  further  on  she  met  the  vicar.  He  bowed,  and  she 
wondered  how  he  could  have  thought  that  she  could  care 
for  him.  Oh,  to  live  in  that  Rectory  with  him!  She 
pitied  the  young  man  who  wore  brown  clothes,  and  whose 
employment  in  a  bank  prevented  him  from  going  abroad 
for  his  health.  These  people  were  well  enough,  but  they 
were  not  for  her.  She  seemed  to  see  beyond  London,  be- 
yond the  seas,  whither  she  could  not  say,  and  she  could  not 
quell  the  yearning  which  rose  to  her  lips  like  a  wave,  and 
over  them. 

Formerly,  when  there  was  choir  practice  at  St.  Joseph's 
she  used  to  go  there  and  meet  her  father,  but  lately,  for 


EVELYN  INNES.  29 

some  reason  which  she  could  not  explain  to  herself,  she  had 
refrained.  The  thought  of  this  church  had  become  dis- 
tasteful to  her,  and  she  returned  home  indifferent  to  every- 
thing, to  music  and  religion  alike.  Her  eyes  turned  from 
the  pile  of  volumes — part  of  Bach's  interminable  works — 
and  all  the  old  furniture,  and  she  stood  at  the  window  and 
watched  the  rain  dripping  into  the  patch  of  black  garden 
in  front  of  the  house,  surrounded  by  a  low  stone  wall.  The 
villas  opposite  suggested  a  desolation  which  found  a  par- 
allel in  her  heart;  the  sloppy  road  and  the  pale  brown  sky 
frightened  her,  so  menacing  seemed  their  monotony.  She 
knew  all  this  suburb;  it  was  all  graven  on  her  mind,  and 
all  that  ornamental  park  where  she  must  go,  if  it  cleared 
a  little,  for  her  afternoon  walk.  She  must  tramp  round 
that  park  once  more.  She  strove  to  keep  out  of  her  mind 
its  symmetrical  walls,  its  stone  basins,  where  the  swans 
floated  like  white  china  ornaments,  almost  as  lifeless.  But 
worse  even  than  these  afternoons  were  the  hours  between 
six  and  eight.  For  very  often  her  father  was  detained, 
and  if  he  missed  the  half -past  six  train  he  had  to  come 
by  the  half-past  seven,  and  in  those  hours  of  waiting  the 
dusk  grew  oppressive  and  fearful  in  the  music-room. 
Startled  by  a  strange  shadow,  she  crouched  in  her  arm- 
chair, and  when  the  feeling  of  dread  passed  she  was  weak 
from  want  of  food.  Why  did  her  father  keep  her  waiting? 
Hungry,  faint  and  weary  of  life,  she  opened  a  volume  of 
Bach;  but  there  was  no  pleasure  for  her  in  the  music,  and 
if  she  opened  a  volume  of  songs  she  had  neither  strength 
nor  will  to  persevere  even  through  the  first,  and,  rising 
from  the  instrument,  she  walked  across  the  room,  stretch- 
ing her  arms  in  a  feverish  despair.  She  had  not  eaten  for 
many  hours,  and  out  of  the  vacuity  of  the  stomach  a 
dimness  rose  into  her  eyes.  Pressing  her  eyes  with  her 
hand,  she  leaned  against  the  door. 

One  evening  she  walked  into  the  garden.  The  silence 
and  damp  of  the  earth  revived  her,  and  the  sensation  of  the 
cold  stone,  against  which  she  was  leaning,  was  agreeable. 
Little  stars  speckled  a  mauve  and  misty  sky,  and  out  of 
the  mysterious  spring  twilight  there  came  a  strange  and 
ultimate  yearning,  a  craving  which  nothing  she  had  ever 
known  could  assuage.  But  those  stars — could  they  tell 
her  nothing?  One,  large  almost  as  the  moon  itself,  flamed 


30  EVELYN  INNES. 

up  in  the  sky,  and  a  voice  within  her  whispered  that  that 
was  her  star,  that  it  held  the  secret  of  her  destiny.  She 
gazed  till  her  father  called  to  her  from  the  gate;  and  all 
that  evening  she  could  think  of  nothing  else.  The  con- 
viction flowed  within  her  that  the  secret  of  her  destiny 
was  there;  and  as  she  lay  in  bed  the  star  seemed  to  take 
a  visible  shape. 

A  face  rose  out  of  the  gulf  beneath  her.  She  could  not 
distinguish  whether  it  was  the  face  of  a  man  or  woman;  it 
was  an  idea  rather  than  a  face.  The  ears  were  turned  to 
her  for  her  to  take  the  earrings,  the  throat  was  deeply 
curved,  the  lips  were  large  and  rose-red,  the  eyes  were 
nearly  closed,  and  the  hair  was  curled  close  over  a  straight, 
low  forehead.  The  face  rose  up  to  hers.  She  looked  into 
the  subtle  eyes,  and  the  thrill  of  the  lips,  just  touching  hers, 
awakened  a  sense  of  sin,  and  her  eyes  when  they  opened 
were  frightened  and  weary.  And  as  she  sat  up  in  her 
bed,  trembling,  striving  vainly  to  separate  the  real  from 
the  unreal,  she  saw  the  star  still  shining.  She  hid  her  face 
in  the  pillow,  and  was  only  calmed  by  the  thought  that  it 
was  watching  her. 

She  went  into  the  garden  every  evening  to  see  it  rise, 
and  a  desire  of  worship  grew  up  in  her  heart;  and  thinking 
of  the  daffodils,  it  occurred  to  her  to  lay  these  flowers  on 
the  wall  as  an  offering.  Even  wilder  thoughts  passed 
through  her  brain ;  she  could  not  keep  them  back,  and  more 
than  once  asked  herself  if  she  were  giving  way  to  an  idola- 
trous intention.  If  so,  she  would  have  to  tell  the  foolish 
story  to  her  confessor.  But  she  could  hardly  bring  herself 
to  tell  him  such  nonsense.  ...  If  she  didn't,  the  omission 
might  make  her  confession  a  false  one;  and  she  was  so 
much  perplexed  that  it  seemed  to  her  as  if  the  devil  took 
the  opportunity  to  insinuate  that  she  might  put  off  going 
to  confession.  This  decided  her.  She  resolved  to  com  but 
the  Evil  One.  To-day  was  Thursday.  She  would  conlV-s 
on  Saturday,  and  go  to  Communion  on  Sunday. 

Till  quite  lately  her  confessor  had  been  Father  Knight 
— a  tall,  spare,  thin-lipped,  aristocratic  ecclesiastic,  in 
whom  Evelyn  had  expected  to  find  a  romantic  personality. 
She  had  looked  forward  to  thrilling  confessions,  but 
been  disappointed.  The  romance  his  appe;ir:mee 
was  not  borne  out;  he  seemed  unable  to  take  that  special  in- 


EVELYN  INNES.  31 

terest  in  her  which  she  desired;  her  confessions  were  bar- 
ren of  spiritual  adventure,  and  after  some  hesitation  her 
choice  dropped  upon  Father  Railston.  In  this  selection 
the  law  of  contrast  played  an  important  part.  The  men 
were  very  opposite.  One  walked  erect  and  tall,  with  meas- 
ured gait ;  the  other  walked  according  to  the  impulse  of  the 
moment,  wearing  his  biretta  either  on  one  side  of  the  head 
or  the  other.  One  was  reserved;  the  other  voluble  in 
speech.  One  was  of  handsome  and  regular  features;  the 
other's  face  was  plain  but  expressive.  Evelyn  had  grown 
interested  in  Father  Railston's  dark,  melancholy  eyes;  and 
his  voice  was  a  human  voice  vibrant  with  the  terror  and 
suffering  of  life.  In  listening  to  her  sins  he  seemed  to 
remember  his  own.  She  had  accused  herself  of  impatience 
at  the  circumstances  which  kept  her  at  home,  of  even 
nourishing,  she  would  not  say  projects,  but  thoughts,  of 
escape. 

"  Then,  my  child,  are  you  so  anxious  to  change  your 
present  life  for  that  of  the  stage  ? " 

"Yes,  Father." 

"  You  weary  of  the  simplicity  of  your  present  life,  and 
sigh  for  the  brilliancy  of  the  stage  ?  " 

"  I'm  afraid  I  do."  It  was  thrilling  to  admit  so  much, 
especially  as  the  life  of  an  actress  was  not  in  itself  sinful. 
"  I  feel  that  I  should  die  very  soon  if  I  were  to  hear  I 
should  never  leave  Dulwich." 

The  priest  did  not  speak  for  a  long  while,  and  raising 
her  eyes,  she  watched  his  expression.  It  seemed  to  her 
that  her  confession  of  her  desire  of  the  world  had  recalled 
memories,  and  she  wondered  what  were  they. 

"  I  am  more  than  forty — I'm  nearly  fifty — and  my  life 
has  passed  like  a  dream." 

He  seemed  about  to  tell  her  the  secret  of  life,  and  had 
stopped.  But  the  phrase  lingered  through  her  whole  life, 
and  eventually  became  part  of  it.  "  My  life  has  passed  like 
a  dream."  She  did  not  remember  what  he  had  said  after, 
and  she  had  gone  away  wondering  if  life  seemed  to  every- 
one like  a  dream  when  they  were  forty,  and  if  his  life  would 
have  seemed  more  real  to  him  if  he  had  given  it  to  the 
world  instead  of  to  God?  Her  subsequent  confessions 
seemed  trite  and  commonplace.  Not  that  Father  Railston 
failed  to  listen  with  kind  interest  to  her;  not  that  he 
3 


32  EVELYN  INNES. 

failed  to  divine  that  she  was  passing  through  a  physical 
and  spiritual  crisis.  His  admonitions  were  comforting  in 
her  weariness  of  mind  and  body;  but  notwithstanding  her 
affection  for  him,  she  felt  that  beyond  that  one  phrase  he 
had  no  influence  over  her.  She  almost  felt  that  he  was  too 
gentle  and  indulgent,  and  she  thought  she  would  have  liked 
a  confessor  who  was  severe,  who  would  have  inflicted  heav- 
ier penances,  compelled  her  to  fast  and  pray,  who  would 
have  listened  in  deeper  sternness  to  the  sins  of  thought 
which  she  with  averted  face  shamefully  owned  to  having 
entertained.  She  was  disappointed  that  he  did  not  warn 
her  with  the  loss  of  her  soul,  that  he  did  not  invent  spe- 
cious expedients  for  her  use,  whereby  the  Evil  One  might 
be  successfully  checked. 

One  Sunday  morning  the  servant  told  Mr.  Innes  that 
Miss  Evelyn  had  left  a  little  earlier,  as  she  was  going  to 
Communion.  She  remained  in  church  for  High  Mass,  and 
when  chided  for  such  long  abstinence,  she  smiled  sadly  and 
said  that  she  did  not  think  that  it  would  do  her  much  harm. 
During  the  following  week  he  noticed  that  she  hardly 
touched  breakfast,  and  the  only  reason  she  gave  was  that 
she  thought  she  would  like  to  fast.  No,  she  had  not  ob- 
tained leave  from  her  confessor;  she  had  not  even  con- 
sulted him.  She,  of  course,  knew  that  she  was  not  obliged 
to  fast,  not  being  of  age ;  but  she  was  not  doing  any  work ; 
she  had  no  pupils;  the  concert  had  been  postponed;  she 
thought  she  would  like  to  fast.  Father  and  daughter 
looked  at  each  other;  they  felt  that  they  did  not  under- 
stand, that  there  was  nothing  to  be  done,  and  Mr.  Innes  put 
his  fiddle  into  its  case  and  went  to  London,  deeply  con- 
cerned about  his  daughter,  and  utterly  unable  to  arrive  at 
any  conclusion. 

She  fasted,  and  she  broke  through  her  fast,  and  as  Lent 
drew  to  a  close  she  asked  her  father  if  she  might  make  a 
week's  retreat  in  a  convent  at  Wimbledon  where  she  had 
some  friends.  There  was  no  need  for  her  at  home;  it 
would  be  at  least  change  of  air,  and  she  pressed  him  to  al- 
low her  to  go.  He  feared  the  influence  the  convent  might 
have  upon  her,  and  admitted  that  his  selfishness  was  largely 
accountable  for  this  religious  reaction.  No  doubt  she 
wanted  change,  she  was  looking  very  poorly.  He  spoke  of 
the  sea,  but  who  was  to  take  her  to  Brighton  or  Margate? 


EVELYN  INNES.  33 

The  convent  seemed  the  only  solution  of  the  difficulty,  and 
he  had  to  consent  to  her  departure. 

The  retreat  was  to  last  four  days,  but  Evelyn  begged 
that  she  might  stay  on  till  Easter  Tuesday.  This  would 
give  her  a  clear  week  away  from  home,  and  the  improve- 
ment that  this  little  change  wrought  in  her  was  surprising. 
The  convent  had  made  her  cheeks  fair  as  roses,  and  given 
her  back  all  her  sunny  happiness  and  abundant  conversa- 
tion. She  delighted  in  telling  her  father  of  her  week's 
experience.  For  four  days  she  had  not  spoken  (perhaps 
that  was  the  reason  she  was  talking  so  much  now),  and 
during  these  four  days  they  were  nearly  always  in  chapel; 
but  somehow  it  hadn't  seemed  long,  the  services  were  so 
beautiful.  The  nuns  wore  grey  serge  robes  and  head- 
dresses, the  novices  white  head-dresses;  what  had  struck 
her  most  was  the  expression  of  happy  content  on  their 
faces. 

"  I  wish,  father,  you  had  seen  them  come  into  church — 
their  long  robes  and  beautiful  white  faces.  I  don't  think 
there  is  anything  as  beautiful  as  a  nun." 

The  mother  prioress  was  a  small  woman,  with  an  eager 
manner.  She  looked  so  unimportant  that  Evelyn  had  won- 
dered why  she  had  been  chosen,  but  the  moment  she  spoke 
you  came  under  the  spell  of  her  keen,  grey  eyes  and  clear 
voice  ....  Mother  Philippa,  the  mistress  of  the  novices, 
was  quite  different — stout  and  middle-aged,  and  she  wore 
spectacles.  She  was  beautiful  notwithstanding;  her  good- 
ness was  like  a  soft  light  upon  her  face.  .  .  .  Evelyn 
paused.  She  could,  not  find  words  to  describe  her;  at  last 
she  said — 

"  When  she  comes  into  the  room,  I  always  feel  happy." 

She  could  not  say  which  she  liked  the  better,  but 
branched  off  into  a  description  of  the  Carmelite  who  had 
given  the  retreat — a  strong,  eagle-faced  man,  with  thin  hair 
drawn  back  from  his  forehead,  and  intense  eyes.  He  wore 
sandals,  and  his  white  frock  was  tied  with  a  leather  belt,  and 
every  word  he  spoke  had  entered  into  her  heart.  He  gave 
the  meditations,  which  were  held  in  the  darkened  library. 
They  could  not  see  each  other's  faces;  they  could  only  see 
the  white  figure  at  the  end  of  the  room. 

She  had  had  her  meals  in  the  parlour  with  two  other 
ladies  who  had  come  to  the  convent  for  the  retreat.  They 


34  EVELYN  INNES. 

were  both  elderly  women,  and  Evelyn  fancied  that  they  be- 
longed to  the  grandest  society.  She  could  tell  that  by  their 
voices.  The  one  she  liked  best  had  quite  white  hair,  and 
her  expression  was  almost  that  of  a  nun.  She  was  tall,  very 
stout,  and  walked  with  a  stick.  On  Easter  Sunday  this  old 
lady  had  asked  her  if  she  would  care  to  come  into  the  gar- 
den with  her.  It  was  such  a  beautiful  morning,  she  said, 
that  it  would  do  both  of  them  good.  The  old  lady  walked 
very  slowly  with  her  stick.  But  though  Evelyn  thought 
that  she  must  be  at  least  a  countess,  she  did  not  think  she 
was  very  rich — she  had  probably  lost  her  money.  The 
black  dress  she  wore  was  thin  and  almost  threadbare,  and  it 
was  a  little  too  long  for  her;  she  held  it  up  in  her  left  hand 
as  she  walked — a  most  beautiful  hand  for  an  old  woman. 
Both  these  ladies  had  been  very  kind  to  her;  she  had  often 
walked  with  them  in  the  garden — a  fine  old  garden.  There 
were  tall,  shady  trees;  these  were  sprinkled  with  the  first 
tiny  leaves;  and  the  currant  and  raspberry  bushes  were  all 
out.  And  there  was  a  fish  pond  swarming  with  gold  fish, 
and  they  were  so  tame  that  they  took  bread  from  the 
novices'  hands. 

The  conversation  had  begun  about  the  convent,  and 
after  speaking  of  its  good  sisters,  the  old  lady,  whose  hair 
was  quite  white,  had  asked  Evelyn  about  herself.  Had  she 
ever  thought  of  being  a  nun?  Evelyn  had  answered  that 
she  had  not.  She  had  never  considered  the  question 
whether  she  had  a  vocation.  .  .  .  She  had  been  brought  up 
to  believe  that  she  was  going  on  the  stage  to  sing  grand 
opera. 

"It  is  hardly  for  me  to  advise  you.  But  I  know  h<>\v 
dangerous  the  life  of  an  opera  singer  is.  I  shall  pray  God 
that  He  may  watch  over  you.  Promise  me  always  to  re- 
member our  holy  religion.  It  is  the  only  thing  that  we 
have  that  is  worth  having ;  all  the  rest  passes." 

"  Father,  we  were  close  by  the  edge  of  the  fishpond,  and 
all  the  greedy  fish  swarmed  to  the  surface,  thinking  we 
had  come  to  feed  them.  She  said,  '  I  cannot  walk  f urthei^ 
without  resting;  come,  my  dear,  let  me  sit  down  on  that 
bench,  and  do  you  sing  me  a  little  song,  very  low,  so  that 
no  one  shall  hear  you  but  I.'  I  sang  her  '  John,  come  kiss 
me  now,'  and  she  said, '  My  dear,  you  have  a  beautiful  voice, 
I  pray  that  you  make  good  use  of  it.' " 


EVELYN  INNES.  35 

But  not  in  one  day  could  all  Evelyn's  convent  experi- 
ences be  related,  and  it  was  not  until  the  end  of  the  week 
that  Evelyn  told  how  Mother  Philippa,  at  the  end  of  a 
long  talk  in  which  she  had  spoken  to  Evelyn  about  the  im- 
pulses which  had  led  her  to  embrace  a  religious  life  (she 
had  been  twenty  years  in  this  convent),  had  taken  her  up- 
stairs, to  the  infirmary  to  see  Sister  Bonaventure,  an 
American  girl,  only  twenty-one,  who  was  dying  of  consump- 
tion. She  lay  on  a  couch  in  grey  robes,  her  hands  and  face 
waxen  white,  and  a  smile  of  happy  resignation  on  her  lips 
and  in  her  eyes. 

"  But,"  exclaimed  Evelyn,  "  they  told  me  she  would  die 
within  the  fortnight,  so  she  may  be  dead  now ;  if  not  to-day, 
to-morrow  or  after.  I  hadn't  thought  of  that.  .  .  I  shall 
never  forget  her,  every  few  minutes  she  coughed — that  hor- 
rible cough !  I  thought  she  was  going  to  die  before  my  eyes, 
but  in  the  intervals  she  chatted  and  even  laughed,  and  no 
word  of  complaint  escaped  her.  She  was  only  twenty-one 
.  .  .  had  known  nothing  of  life;  all  was  unknown  to  her, 
except  God,  and  she  was  going  to  Heaven.  She  seemed 
quite  happy,  yet  to  me  it  seemed  the  saddest  sight  in  the 
world.  .  .  .  She'll  be  buried  in  a  few  days  in  the  sunniest 
corner  of  the  garden,  away  from  the  house — that  is  their 
graveyard.  The  mother  Prioress,  the  founder  of  the  con- 
vent, is  buried  there;  a  little  dedicatory  chapel  has  been 
built,  and  on  the  green  turf,  tall  wooden  crosses  mark  the 
graves  of  six  nuns ;  next  week  there'll  be  one  more  cross." 

The  conversation  paused,  and  Evelyn  sat  looking  into 
the  corner  of  the  room,  her  large  clear  eyes  wide  open  and 
fixed.  Presently  she  said — 

"  Father,  I've  often  thought  I  should  like  to  be  a  nun." 

"  You  a  nun !     And  with  that  voice !  " 

She  looked  at  him,  smiling  a  little. 

"What  matter?" 

"What  matter!  Have  you  not  thought — but  I  under- 
stand; you  mean  that  your  voice  is  wasted  here,  that  we 
shall  never  have  the  means  to  go  abroad.  .  .  .  But  we 
shall." 

"  Father,  dear,  I  wasn't  thinking  of  that.  I  do  believe 
that  means  will  be  found  to  send  me  abroad  to  study.  But 
what  then  ?  Shall  I  be  happy  ?  " 

"  Fame,  fortune,  art !  " 


36  EVELYN  1NNES. 

"  Those  nuns  have  none  of  those  things,  and  they  are 
happy.  As  that  old  lady  said,  their  happiness  comes  from 
within." 

"  And  you'll  be  happy  with  those  things,  as  happy  as 
they  are  without  them.  You're  in  a  melancholy  mood ; 
come,  we'll  think  of  the  work  before  us.  I've  decided  that 
we  give  our  concert  the  week  after  next.  That  will  give 
us  ten  clear  days." 

He  entered  into  the  reasons  which  had  induced  him  to 
give  this  concert.  But  Evelyn  had  heard  all  about  the  firm 
of  musical  publishers,  who  possibly  might  ask  him  to  bring 
up  the  old  instruments  to  London,  and  give  a  concert  in  a 
fashionable  West  End  hall.  Seeing  that  she  was  not  lis- 
tening, he  broke  off  his  narrative  with  the  remark  that  he 
had  received  a  letter  that  morning  from  Sir  Owen. 

"  Is  he  coming  home  ?  I  thought  he  was  going  round 
the  world  and  would  not  be  back  for  a  year." 

"He  has  changed  his  mind.  This  letter  was  posted  at 
Malta — a  most  interesting  letter  it  is ; "  and  while  Mr. 
Innes  read  Sir  Owen's  account  of  the  discovery  of  the 
musical  text  of  an  ancient  hymn  which  had  been  unearthed 
in  his  presence,  Evelyn  wondered  if  he  had  come  home  for 
her  or — the  thought  entered  her  heart  with  a  pang — if  he 
had  come  home  for  the  red-haired  woman.  Mr.  Innes 
stopped  suddenly  in  his  reading,  and  asked  her  of  what  she 
was  thinking. 

"Nothing,  father." 

"  You  don't  seem  to  take  any  interest.  The  text  is  in- 
complete, and  some  notes  have  been  conjecturally  added 
by  a  French  musician."  But  much  more  interesting  to 
Evelyn  was  his  account  of  the  storm  that  had  overtaken 
his  yacht  on  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor.  He  had  had  to  take 
his  turn  at  the  helm,  all  the  sailors  being  engaged  at  the 
sails,  and,  with  the  waves  breaking  over  him,  he  had  kept 
her  head  to  the  wind  for  more  than  two  hours. 

"  I  can  hardly  fancy  him  braving  the  elements,  can  you, 
Evelyn?" 

"  I  don't  know,  father,"  she  said,  startled  by  the  ques- 
tion, for  at  that  moment  she  had  seen  him  in  imagination 
as  clearly  as  if  he  were  present.  She  had  seen  him  leaning 
against  the  door-post,  a  half-cynical,  half-kindly  smile  float- 
ing through  his  gold  moustache.  "  Do  you  think  he  will 


EVELYN  1NNES.  37 

like  the  music  you  are  going  to  give  at  the  next  concert? 
He  is  coming,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"  It  is  just  possible  he  may  arrive  in  time;  but  I  should 
hardly  think  so.  I've  written  to  invite  him;  he'll  like  the 
music;  it  is  the  most  interesting  programme  we've  had — 
an  unpublished  sonata  by  Bach — one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing, too.  If  that  is  not  good  enough  for  him — by  the  way, 
have  you  looked  through  that  sonata  ? " 

"  No,  father,  but  I  will  do  so  this  afternoon." 
And  while  practising  the  sonata,  Evelyn  felt  as  if  life 
had  begun  again.  The  third  movement  of  the  sonata  was 
an  exquisite  piece  of  musical  colour,  and,  if  she  played  it 
properly,  he  could  not  fail  to  come  and  congratulate  her. 
.  .  .  But  he  would  not  be  here  in  time  for  the  concert 
.  .  .  not  unless  he  came  straight  through,  and  he  would  not 
do  that  after  having  nearly  escaped  shipwreck.  She  was 
sure  he  would  not  arrive  in  time,  but  the  possibility  that 
he  might  gave  her  additional  interest  in  the  sonata,  and 
every  day,  all  through  the  week,  she  discovered  more  and 
more  surprising  beauties  in  it. 


IV. 

SHE  was  alone  in  the  music  room  reading  a  piece  of 
music,  and  her  back  was  to  the  door  when  he  entered.     She 
hardly  recognised  him,  tired  and  tossed  as  he  was  by  long 
journeying,  and  his  grey  travelling  suit  was  like  a  disguise. 
"  Is  that  you,  Sir  Owen  ?  .  .  .  You've  come  back  ?  " 
"  Come    back,    yes,    I    have    come    back.      I    travelled 
straight  through  from  Marseilles,  a  pretty  stiff  journey  .  .  . 
we  were  nearly  shipwrecked  off  Marseilles." 

"  I  thought  it  was  off  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor  ?  " 
"  That  was  another  storm.     We  have  had  rough  weather 
lately." 

The  music  dropped  from  her  hand,  and  she  stood  look- 
ing at  him,  for  he  stood  before  her  like  an  ancient  sea- 
farer. His  grey  tweed  suit  buttoned  tightly  about  him  set 
off  every  line  of  his  spare  figure.  His  light  brown  hair 
was  tossed  all  over  his  head,  and  she  could  not  reconcile 


38  EVELYN  INNES. 

this  rough  traveller  with  the  elegant  fribble  whom  she  had 
hitherto  known  as  Sir  Owen.  But  she  liked  him  in  this 
grey  suit,  dusty  after  long  travel.  He  was  picturesque  and 
remote  as  a  legend.  A  smile  was  on  his  lips;  it  showed 
through  the  frizzled  moustache,  and  his  eyes  sparkled  with 
pleasure  at  sight  of  her. 

"  But  why  did  you  travel  straight  through  ?  You  might 
have  slept  at  Marseilles  or  Paris." 

"  One  of  these  days  I  will  tell  you  about  the  gale.  I 
wonder  I  am  not  at  the  bottom  of  that  treacherous  sea;  it 
did  blow  my  poor  yacht  about — I  thought  it  was  her  last 
cruise;  and  when  we  got  to  the  hotel  I  was  handed  your 
father's  letter.  As  I  did  not  want  to  miss  the  concert,  I 
came  straight  through." 

"  You  must  be  very  fond  of  music." 

"  Yes,  I  am  ....  Music  can  be  heard  anywhere,  but 
your  voice  can  only  be  heard  at  Dulwich." 

"  Was  it  to  hear  me  sing  that  you  came  back  ?  " 

She  had  spoken  unawares,  and  felt  that  the  question 
was  a  foolish  one,  and  was  trembling  lest  he  should  be  in- 
wardly laughing  at  her.  But  the  earnest  expression  into 
which  his  little  grey  eyes  concentrated  reassured  her.  She 
seemed  to  lose  herself  a  little,  to  drift  into  a  sort  of  dream 
in  which  even  he  seemed  to  recede,  and  so  intense  and  per- 
sonal was  her  sensation  that  she  could  not  follow  his  tale 
of  adventure.  It  was  an  effort  to  listen  to  it  at  that  mo- 
ment, and  she  said — 

"  But  you  must  be  tired,  you've  not  had  a  proper  night's 
sleep  .  .  .  for  a  week." 

"  I'm  not  very  tired,  I  slept  in  the  train,  but  I'm  hungry. 
I've  not  had  anything  since  ten  o'clock  this  morning. 
There  was  no  time  to  get  anything  at  Victoria.  I  was  told 
that  the  next  train  for  Dulwich  started  in  five  minutes.  I 
left  my  valet  to  take  my  trunks  home;  he  will  bring  my 
evening  clothes  on  here  for  the  concert.  Can  you  let  me 
have  a  room  to  dress  in  ?  " 

"  Of  course;  but  you  must  have  something  to  eat." 

"  I  thought  of  going  round  to  the  inn  and  having  a 
chop." 

"We  had  a  beefsteak  pudding  for  dinner;  I  wonder  if 
you  could  eat  beefsteak  pudding?" 

"  There's  nothing  better." 


EVELYN  INNES.  39 

"Warmed  up?" 

"  Yes,  warmed  up." 

"  Then  I  may  run  and  tell  Margaret  ? " 

"  I  shall  be  much  obliged  to  you  if  you  will." 

She  liked  to  wait  upon  him,  and  her  pleasure  quickened 
when  she  handed  him  bread  or  poured  out  ale,  making  it 
foam  in  the  glass,  for  refreshment  after  his  long  journey; 
and  when  she  sat  opposite,  her  eyes  fixed  on  him,  and  he 
told  her  his. tale  of  adventure,  her  happy  flushed  face  re- 
minded him  of  that  exquisite  promise,  the  pink  almond 
blossom  showing  through  the  wintry  wood. 

"  So  you  didn't  believe  me  when  I  said  that  it  was  to 
hear  you  sing  that  I  came  back  ? " 

"  That  you  renounced  your  trip  round  the  world  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  renounced  my  trip  round  the  world  to  hear  you 
sing." 

She  did  not  answer,  and  he  put  the  question  again. 

"  I  can  understand  that  there  might  be  sufficient  reason 
for  your  giving  up  your  trip  round  the  world.  I  thought 
that  perhaps — no,  I  cannot  say " 

They  had  been  thinking  of  each  other,  and  had  taken 
up  their  interest  in  each  other  at  their  last  thoughts  rather 
than  at  their  last  words.  She  was  more  conscious  of  the 
reason  of  their  sudden  intimacy  than  he  was,  but  he  too 
felt  that  they  had  advanced  a  long  way  in  their  knowledge 
of  each  other,  and  their  intuition  was  so  much  in  advance 
of  facts  that  they  sat  looking  at  each  other  embarrassed, 
their  words  unable  to  keep  pace  with  their  perceptions. 

Evelyn  suddenly  felt  as  if  she  were  being  borne  forward, 
but  at  that  moment  her  father  entered. 

"  Father,  Sir  Owen  was  famishing  when  he  arrived. 
He  wanted  to  go  to  the  inn  and  eat  a  chop,  but  I  persuaded 
him  to  stop  and  have  some  beefsteak  pudding." 

"  I  am  so  glad  .  .  .  you've  arrived  just  in  time,  Sir 
Owen.  The  concert  is  to-night." 

"  He  came  straight  through  without  stopping ;  he  has 
not  been  home.  So,  father,  you  will  never  be  able  to  say 
again  that  your  concerts  are  not  appreciated." 

"  Well,  I  don't  think  that  you  will  be  disappointed,  Sir 
Owen.  This  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  programmes  we 
have  had.  You  remember  Ferrabosco's  pavane  which  you 
liked  so  much " 


40  EVELYN  INNES. 

Margaret  announced  the  arrival  of  Sir  Owen's  valet, 
and  while  Mr.  Innes  begged  of  Sir  Owen  not  to  put  himself 
to  the  trouble  of  dressing,  Owen  wondered  at  his  own  folly 
in  yielding  to  a  sudden  caprice  to  see  the  girl.  However,  he 
did  not  regret  it;  she  was  a  prettier  girl  than  he  had 
thought,  and  her  welcome  was  the  pleasantest  thing  that 
had  happened  to  him  for  many  a  day. 

"  My  poor  valet,  I  am  afraid,  is  quite  Tiors  de  combat. 
He  was  dreadfully  ill  while  we  were  beating  up  against  that 
gale,  and  the  long  train  journey  has  about  finished  him.  At 
Victoria  he  looked  more  dead  than  alive." 

Evelyn  went  out  to  see  this  pale  victim  of  sea  sickness 
and  expedition.  She  offered  him  dinner  and  then  tea,  but 
he  said  he  had  had  all  he  could  eat  at  the  refreshment  bars, 
and  struggled  upstairs  with  the  portmanteau  of  his  too 
exigent  master. 

A  few  of  her  guests  had  already  arrived,  and  Evelyn  was 
talking  to  Father  Railston  when  Sir  Owen  came  into  the 
room. 

"  I  shall  not  want  you  again  to-night,"  he  said,  turning 
towards  the  door  to  speak  to  his  valet.  "  Don't  sit  up  for 
me,  and  don't  call  me  to-morrow  before  ten." 

She  had  not  yet  had  time  to  speak  to  Owen  of  a  dream 
which  she  had  dreamed  a  few  nights  before,  and  in  which 
she  was  much  interested.  She  had  seen  him  borne  on  the 
top  of  a  huge  wave,  clinging  to  a  piece  of  wreckage,  alone 
in  the  solitary  circle  of  the  sea.  But  Owen,  when  he  came 
downstairs  dressed  for  the  concert,  looked  no  longer  like  a 
seafarer.  He  wore  an  embroidered  waistcoat,  his  necktie 
was  tied  in  a  butterfly  bow,  and  the  three  pearl  studs,  which 
she  remembered,  fastened  the  beautiful  frilled  shirt.  She 
was  a  little  disappointed,  and  thought  that  she  liked  him 
better  in  the  rough  grey  suit,  with  his  hair  tossed,  just 
come  out  of  the  travelling  cap.  Now  it  was  brushed  about 
his  ears,  and  it  glistened  as  if  from  some  application  of 
brilliantine  or  other  toilet  essence.  Now  he  was  more  pro- 
saic, but  he  had  been  extraordinarily  romantic  when  he  ran 
in  to  see  her,  his  grey  travelling  cap  just  snatched  from  his 
head.  It  was  then  she  should  have  told  him  her  dream. 
All  this  was  a  very  faint  impression,  half  humorous,  half 
regretful,  it  passed,  almost  without  her  being  aware  of  it, 
in  the  background  of  her  mind.  But  she  was  keenly  disap- 


EVELYN  INNES.  41 

pointed  that  he  was  not  impressed  by  her  dream,  and  was 
inclined  to  consider  it  in  the  light  of  a  mere  coincidence. 
In  the  first  place,  he  hadn't  been  shipwrecked,  and  that  she 
should  dream  of  shipwreck  was  most  natural  since  she  knew 
that  he  had  gone  a-seafaring,  and  any  gust  of  wind  in  the 
street  was  enough  to  excite  the  idea  of  a  castaway  in  the 
unclosed  cellular  tissues  of  her  brain.  She  did  not  an- 
swer, and  he  stood  trying  to  force  an  answer  from  her, 
but  she  could  not,  nor  did  she  wish  to  think  that  her  dream 
was  no  more  than  a  merely  physiological  phenomenon. 
But  just  at  that  moment  Mr.  Innes  was  waiting  to  speak  to 
Sir  Owen. 

He  had  a  great  deal  to  say  on  the  subject  of  the  dis- 
graceful neglect  of  the  present  Koyal  Family  in  not  pub- 
lishing the  works  of  their  single  artistic  ancestor,  Henry 
VIII.  Up  to  the  present  time  none  of  his  numerous  writ- 
ings, except  one  anthem  played  in  the  Chapel  at  Windsor, 
was  known;  the  pieces  that  were  going  to  be  played  that 
evening  lay  in  MS.  in  the  British  Museum,  and  had  prob- 
ably not  been  heard  for  two,  maybe  three  hundred  years. 
Encouraged  by  Sir  Owen's  sympathy,  he  referred  again,  in 
his  speech  to  his  audience,  to  the  indifference  of  the  present 
Royal  Family  to  art,  and  he  added  that  it  was  strange  that 
he  should  be  doing  at  Dowlands  what  the  Queen  or  the 
Prince  of  Wales  should  have  done  long  ago,  namely,  the 
publication  of  their  ancestor's  work  with  all  the  prestige 
that  their  editorship  or  their  patronage  could  give  it. 

"  I  must  go,"  she  said ;  "  they  are  waiting  for  me." 

She  took  her  place  among  the  viol  players  and  began 
playing;  but  she  had  forgotten  to  tune  her  instrument,  and 
her  father  stopped  the  performance.  She  looked  at  him,  a 
little  frightened,  and  laughed  at  her  mistake.  The  piece 
they  were  playing  was  by  Henry  VIII,  a  masterpiece,  Mr. 
Innes  had  declared  it  to  be,  so,  to  stop  the  performance  on 
account  of  Evelyn's  viola  da  gamba,  and  then  to  hear  her 
play  worse  than  he  had  ever  heard  her  play  before,  was  very 
disappointing. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?  Aren't  you  well  ?  I  never  heard 
you  play  so  badly." 

He  hoped  that  she  would  play  better  in  the  next  piece, 
and  he  besought  her  with  a  look  before  he  signed  to  the 
players  to  begin.  She  resolved  not  to  think  of  Owen,  and 


42  EVELYN  INNES. 

she  played  so  well  that  the  next  piece  was  applauded.  Ex- 
cept for  her  father's  sake  she  cared  very  little  how  she 
played;  she  tried  to  play  well  to  please  him,  but  she  was 
anxious  to  sing  well — she  was  singing  for  herself  and  for 
Owen,  which  was  the  same  thing — and  she  sang  beautifully 
in  the  King's  madrigal  and  the  two  songs  accompanied  by 
the  lute — "  I  loathe  what  I  did  love,"  and  "  My  lytell  pretty 
one,"  both  anonymous,  composed  in  1520,  and  discovered 
by  Mr.  Innes  in  the  British  Museum.  The  musical  interest 
of  these  two  songs  was  slight,  and  Owen  reflected  that  all 
Mr.  Innes's  discoveries  at  the  British  Museum  were  not  of 
equal  importance.  But  she  had  sung  divinely,  and  he 
thought  how  he  could  praise  her  at  the  end  of  the  concert. 

Evelyn  hoped  that  he  would  tell  her  that  she  had  sung 
better  than  she  had  sung  on  the  fatal  night  of  the  party  in 
Berkeley  Square.  This  was  what  she  wished  him  to  say, 
and  she  wished  it  partly  because  she  knew  that  that  was 
what  he  would  say.  That  party  had  not  yet  been  spoken  of, 
but  she  felt  sure  it  would  be,  for  it  seemed  a  decisive  point 
in  their  lives. 

She  was  not  playing  in  the  next  two  pieces — fantasies 
for  treble  and  tenor  viols — and  she  sat  in  the  background, 
catching  glimpses  of  Owen  between  the  hands  and  the 
heads  of  the  viol  players,  and  over  the  rims  of  their  instru- 
ments. She  sat  apart,  not  hearing  a  note  of  the  music,  ab- 
sorbed in  herself,  a  little  exaltation  afloat  in  her  brain, 
her  flesh  glowing  as  in  the  warmth  of  an  inward  fire,  her 
whole  instinct  telling  her  that  Owen  had  not  come  back  for 
the  red-haired  woman;  he  had  gone  away  for  her,  perhaps, 
but  he  had  not  come  back  for  her — of  that  she  was  sure. 
In  spite  of  herself,  the  conviction  was  forced  upon  her  that 
the  future  was  for  her.  The  red-haired  lady  was  a  past 
which  he  would  tell  her  some  day,  and  that  day  she  kiK-\v 
to  be  not  very  far  distant. 

The  programme  was  divided  into  two  parts,  and  after 
the  first,  there  was  a  little  interval  during  which  tea  and 
cake  were  handed  round.  Evelyn  helped  to  hand  them 
round,  and  when  she  held  the  cake  tray  to  Owen,  she  raised 
her  eyes  and  they  looked  at  each  other,  and  in  that  interval 
it  almost  seemed  as  if  they  kissed  each  other. 

They  met  again  at  the  end  of  the  concert,  atid  she 
waited  anxiously  for  him  to  speak.  He  told  her,  as  she  ex- 


EVELYN  INNES.  43 

pected  he  would,  that  she  had  sung  to-night  much  better 
than  she  had  sung  at  his  party.  But  they  were  surrounded 
by  people  seeking  their  coats  and  umbrellas;  it  was  im- 
possible to  speak  without  being  overheard;  he  had  told  her 
that  she  had  sung  to  his  satisfaction;  that  was  sufficient, 
and  they  felt  that  all  had  been  said,  and  that  they  under- 
stood each  other  perfectly. 

As  she  lay  in  bed,  the  thought  came  that  he  might  write 
to  her  a  letter  asking  her  to  meet  him,  to  keep  an  appoint- 
ment. But  she  would  have  to  refuse,  it  would  be  wrong; 
but  it  was  not  wrong  to  think  about  it.  He  would  be  there 
before  her;  the  moment  he  saw  her  coming  his  eyes  would 
light  up  in  a  smile,  and  they  would  walk  on  together  some 
little  way  without  speaking.  Then  he  would  say,  "  Dearest, 
there  will  be  a  carriage  waiting  at  the  corner  of  the  road  " 
— and  then  ?  She  could  see  his  face  and  his  tall,  thin  figure, 
she  could  picture  it  all  so  distinctly  that  it  was  almost  the 
same  as  if  it  were  happening.  All  he  said,  as  well  as  all 
she  said,  kept  pouring  in  upon  her  brain  without  a  missing 
word,  and  she  hugged  herself  in  the  delight  of  these  im- 
aginings, and  the  hours  went  by  without  weariness  for  her. 
She  lay,  her  arms  folded,  thinking,  thinking,  seeing  him 
through  the  darkness. 

He  came  to  see  them  the  following  day.  Her  father 
was  there  all  the  time,  but  to  hear  and  see  him  was  almost 
enough  for  her.  She  seemed  to  lose  sight  of  everything 
and  to  be  engulfed  in  her  own  joy.  When  he  had  gone 
away  she  remembered  the  smile  which  had  lit  up  some 
pretty  thought  of  her;  her  ears  were  full  of  his  voice,  and 
she  heard  the  lilt  that  charmed  her  whenever  she  pleased. 
Then  she  asked  herself  the  meaning  of  some  casual  remark, 
and  her  mind  repeated  all  he  had  said  like  a  phonograph. 
She  already  knew  his  habitual  turns  of  speech;  they  had 
begun  to  appear  in  her  own  conversation,  and  all  that  was 
not  connected  with  him  lost  interest  for  her.  Once  or 
twice  during  the  week  she  went  to  bed  early  so  that  she 
might  not  fancy  her  father  was  looking  at  her  while  she 
thought  of  Owen. 

Owen  called  at  the  end  of  the  week — the  Wagnerian 
Review  always  supplied  him  with  sufficient  excuse  for  a 
visit — but  he  had  to  spend  his  visit  in  discussing  the  text 
of  a  Greek  hymn  which  he  had  seen  disinterred  in  Greece. 


44  EVELYN  INNES. 

She  was  sorry  for  him,  sorrier  than  she  was  for  herself,  for 
she  could  always  find  him  in  her  thoughts.  .  .  .  She  won- 
dered if  he  could  find  her  as  vividly  in  his  thoughts  as  she 
settled  herself  (the  next  day  was  Sunday)  in  the  corner  of 
her  pew,  resolved  from  the  beginning  not  to  hear  a  word 
of  the  sermon,  but  to  think  of  Owen  the  whole  time.  She 
wanted  to  hear  why  he  had  left  England  so  suddenly,  and 
why  he  had  returned  so  suddenly.  She  was  sure  that  she 
and  the  red-haired  lady  were  the  cause  of  one  or  the  other, 
and  that  neither  was  the  cause  of  both.  These  two  facts 
served  for  a  warp  upon  which  she  could  weave  endless 
mental  embroideries,  tales  as  real  as  the  tales  of  old  tapes- 
try, tales  of  love  and  jealousy,  and  unexpected  meetings,  in 
which  she  and  Owen  and  the  red-haired  lady  met  and  re- 
met.  Whilst  Father  Railston  was  preaching,  these  tales 
flowed  on  and  on,  subtle  as  silk,  illusive  as  evening  tinted 
clouds;  and  it  was  not  until  she  had  exhausted  her  fancy, 
and  Owen  had  made  one  more  fruitless  visit  to  Dulwich, 
that  she  began  to  scheme  how  she  might  see  him  alone. 
There  was  so  much  that  they  could  only  talk  about  if  they 
were  alone;  and  then  she  wanted  so  much  to  hear  the  story 
of  the  red-haired  lady.  If  she  did  not  contrive  an  oppor- 
tunity for  being  with  him  alone,  she  might  never  hear  why 
he  had  left  England  for  a  trip  round  the  world,  and  had  re- 
turned suddenly  from  the  Mediterranean.  She  felt  that, 
however  difficult  and  however  wrong  it  might  be,  she  must 
find  this  opportunity.  She  thought  of  asking  him  the  hour 
of  the  train  by  which  he  generally  came  to  Dulwich,  so  that 
she  might  meet  him  in  the  station.  Other  schemes  came 
into  her  mind,  but  she  could  think  of  nothing  that  was  just 
right. 

But  one  day,  as  she  was  running  to  post  a  letter,  she 
saw  Owen,  more  beautifully  dressed  than  ever,  coming  to- 
ward her.  Her  feet  and  her  heart  stood  still,  for  she  wore 
her  old  morning  gown  and  a  pair  of  old  house  slippers. 
But  he  had  already  seen  her  and  was  lifting  his  hat,  and 
with  easy  effrontery  he  told  her  that  he  had  come  to  Dul- 
wich to  consult  her  father  about  the  Greek  hymn. 

"  But  father  is  at  St.  Joseph's,"  she  said,  and  then  she 
stopped;  and  then,  before  she  saw  his  smile,  she  knew  why 
he  had  come  to  Dulwich  so  early. 

The  shadows  of  the  leaves  on  the  pavement  drew  a 


EVELYN  INNES.  45 

pretty  pattern  for  their  feet,  and  they  strolled  meditatively 
through  the  subdued  sunlight. 

"  Why  did  you  stop  and  look  so  startled  when  you  saw 
me?" 

"  Because  I  am  so  badly  dressed ;  my  old  house  slippers 
and  this— 

"  You  look  very  well — dress  matters  nothing." 

"No  one  would  gather  your  opinions  from  your  ap- 
pearance." 

Owen  laughed,  and  admired  the  girl's  wit. 

"  Do  you  want  to  see  father  very  much  about  the  Greek 
hymn  ? " 

"  Well,"  he  said,  and  he  looked  at  her  questioningly, 
and  not  liking  to  tell  her  in  so  many  words  that  he  had 
come  to  Dulwich  to  see  her,  he  entered  into  the  question  of 
the  text  of  the  hymn,  which  was  imperfect.  Many  notes 
were  missing,  and  had  been  conjecturedly  added  by  a 
French  musician,  and  he  had  wished  to  consult  Mr.  Innes 
about  them.  So  a  good  deal  of  time  was  wasted  in  conver- 
sation in  which  neither  was  interested.  Before  they  were 
aware,  they  were  at  Dowlands,  and  with  an  accent  of  re- 
gret in  her  voice,  which  Owen  noticed  with  pleasure,  she 
held  out  her  hand  and  said  good-bye. 

"  Are  you  very  busy,  then,  are  you  expecting  a  pupil  ?  " 

"  No,  I  have  nothing  to  do." 

"  Then  why  should  we  say  good-bye  ?  It  is  hardly 
worth  while  getting  up  so  early  in  the  morning  to  discuss 
the  text  of  an  ancient  Greek  hymn." 

His  frankness  was  unexpected,  and  it  pleased  her. 

"  No,  I  don't  suppose  it  is ;  Greek  music  at  eleven 
o'clock  in  the  morning  would  be  a  little  trying." 

A  delicious  sense  of  humour  lit  up  in  her  eyes,  and  he 
felt  his  interest  in  her  advance  a  further  stage. 

"  If  you  have  nothing  to  do  we  might  go  to  the  picture 
gallery.  There  is  a  wonderful  Watteau " 

"  Watteau  at  eleven,  Greek  hymn  at  one." 

But  she  felt,  all  the  same,  that  she  would  give  every- 
thing to  go  to  the  picture  gallery  with  him. 

"  But  I  am  not  dressed,  this  is  an  old  thing  I  wear  in 
the  morning;  not  that  there  would  be  many  people  there, 
only  the  curator  and  a  girl  copying  at  eleven  in  the  morn- 
ing." 


46  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  But  is  your  father  coming  back  at  one  ? " 

"Why  do  you  ask?" 

"  Because  you  said  Greek  hymn  at  one.  The  time  will 
pass  quickly  between  eleven  and  one.  You  need  not  change 
your  dress." 

Then  with  an  expressive  little  glance  which  went 
straight  to  his  heart,  she  noted  his  fastidious  dress,  the 
mauve  necktie,  the  perfectly  fitting  morning  coat  buttoned 
across  the  chest,  the  yellow-brown  trousers,  and  the  long 
laced  boots,  half  of  patent  and  half  of  tan  coloured  leather. 

"  I  could  not  walk  about  with  you  in  this  dress  and  hat, 
but  I  sha'n't  keep  you  long." 

While  he  waited  he  congratulated  himself  on  the  mo- 
ment when  he  had  determined  to  abandon  his  tour  round 
the  world,  and  come  back  to  see  Evelyn  Innes  at  Dulwich. 

"  She  is  much  nicer,  a  hundred  times  more  exciting 
than  I  thought.  Poetry,  sympathy,  it  is  like  living  in  a 
dream."  He  asked  himself  if  he  liked  her  better  than 
Georgina,  and  answered  himself  that  he  did;  but  deep 
down  in  his  heart  he  knew  that  the  other  woman  had 
given  him  deeper  and  more  poignant  emotions,  and  he  knit 
his  brows,  for  he  hated  Georgina. 

Owen  was  the  first  temptation  in  Evelyn's  life,  and 
it  carried  her  forward  with  the  force  of  a  swirling  river. 
She  tried  to  think,  but  thoughts  failed  her,  and  she  hooked 
her  black  cloth  skirt  and  thrust  her  arms  into  her  black 
cloth  jacket  with  puffed  sleeves.  She  opened  her  wardrobe, 
and  wondered  which  hat  he  would  like,  chose  one,  and  has- 
tened downstairs. 

"  You've  not  been  long  .  .  .  you  look  very  nice.  Yes, 
that  is  an  improvement." 

His  notice  of  her  occasioned  in  her  a  little  flutter  of  joy, 
a  little  exaltation  of  the  senses,  and  she  walked  on  without 
speaking,  deep  in  her  pleasure,  and  as  the  sensation  died 
she  became  aware  that  she  was  very  happy.  The  quiet 
silence  of  the  spring  morning  corresponded  to  her  mood, 
and  the  rustle  of  last  year's  leaves  communicated  a  deli- 
cious emotion  which  seemed  to  sing  in  the  currents  of  her 
blood,  and  a  little  madness  danced  in  her  brain  at  the  or- 
dinary sight  of  nature.  "This  way,"  she  said,  and  they 
turned  into  a  lane  which  almost  looked  like  country. 
There  were  hedges  and  fields ;  and  the  sunlight  dozed  amid 


EVELYN  INNES.  47 

the  cows,  and  over  the  branches  of  the  high  elm  the  spring 
was  already  shaking  a  soft  green  dust.  There  were  nests  in 
the  bare  boughs — whether  last  year's  or  this  year's  was  not 
certain.  Further  on  there  was  a  stile,  and  she  thought  that 
she  would  like  to  lean  upon  it  and  look  straight  through 
the  dim  fields,  gathering  the  meaning  which  they  seemed 
to  express.  She  wondered  if  Owen  felt  as  she  did,  if  he 
shared  her  admiration  of  the  sunlight  which  fell  about  the 
stile  through  the  woven  branches,  making  round  white 
spots  on  the  roadway. 

"  So  you  were  surprised  to  hear  that  I  had  given  up  my 
trip  round  the  world  ?  " 

"I  was  surprised  to  hear  you  had  given  it  up  so  that 
you  might  hear  me  sing." 

"  You  think  a  man  incapable  of  giving  up  anything  for 
a  woman  ? " 

lie  was  trembling,  and  his  voice  was  confused;  experi- 
ence did  not  alter  him;  on  the  verge  of  an  avowal  he  was 
nervous  as  a  schoolboy.  He  watched  to  see  if  she  were 
moved,  but  she  did  not  seem  to  be;  he  waited  for  her  to 
contest  the  point  he  had  raised,  but  her  reply,  which  was 
quite  different,  took  him  aback. 

"  You  say  you  came  back  to  hear  me  sing.  Was  it  not 
for  another  woman  that  you  went  away  ? " 

"  Yes,  but  how  did  you  know  ?  " 

"  The  woman  with  the  red  hair  who  was  at  your 
party?" 

The  tale  of  a  past  love  affair  often  served  Owen  as  a 
plank  of  transition  to  another.  He  told  her  the  tale.  It 
seemed  to  him  extraordinary  because  it  had  happened  to 
him,  and  it  seemed  to  Evelyn  very  extraordinary,  because 
it  was  her  first  experience  of  the  ways  of  love. 

"  Then  it  was  she  who  got  tired  of  you?  Why  did  she 
get  tired  of  you  ?  " 

"  Why  anything  ?     Why  did  she  fall  in  love  with  me  ?  " 

"  Is  it,  then,  the  same  thing  ? " 

He  judged  it  necessary  to  dissemble,  and  he  advanced 
the  theory  which  he  always  made  use  of  on  these  occasions 
— that  women  were  more  capricious  than  men,  that  so  far 
as  his  experience  counted  for  anything,  he  had  invariably 
been  thrown  over.  The  object  of  this  theory  was  two-fold. 
It  impressed  his  listener  with  an  idea  of  his  fidelity,  which 
4 


48  EVELYN  INNES. 

was  essential  if  she  were  a  woman.  It  also  suggested  that 
he  had  inspired  a  large  number  of  caprices,  thereby  he 
gratified  his  vanity  and  inspired  hope  in  the  lady  that  as  a 
lover  he  would  prove  equal  to  her  desire.  It  also  helped  to 
establish  the  moral  atmosphere  in  which  an  intrigue  might 
develop. 

"  Did  you  love  her  very  much  ? " 

"  Yes,  I  was  crazy  about  her.  If  I  hadn't  been,  should 
I  have  rushed  off  in  my  old  yacht  for  a  tour  round  the 
world?" 

He  felt  the  light  of  romance  fall  upon  him,  and  this, 
he  thought,  was  how  he  ought  to  appear  to  her. 

Yet  he  was  sincere.  He  admired  Evelyn,  he  thought 
he  might  like  to  be  her  lover,  and  he  regarded  their  present 
talk  as  a  necessary  subterfuge,  the  habitual  comedy  in 
which  we  live.  So,  when  Evelyn  asked  him  if  he  still  loved 
Gcorgina,  he  answered  that  he  hated  her,  which  was  only 
partly  true;  and  when  she  asked  him  if  he  would  go  back 
to  her  if  she  were  to  invite  him,  he  said  that  nothing  in 
the  world  would  induce  him  to  do  so,  which  was  wholly 
untrue,  though  he  would  not  admit  it  to  himself,  lie 
knew  that  if  Georgina  were  to  hold  up  her  little  finger  he 
would  leave  Evelyn  without  a  second  thought,  however 
foolish  he  might  know  such  conduct  to  be. 

"  Why  did  you  not  marry  her  when  she  was  in  love 
with  you?  " 

"  You  can  love  a  woman  very  well  indeed  without  want- 
ing to  marry  her;  besides,  she  is  married.  But  are  you 
sure  we're  going  right?  ...  Is  this  the  way  to  the  pic- 
ture gallery  ? " 

"  Oh,  the  picture  gallery,  I  had  forgotten.  We  have 
passed  it  a  long  while." 

They  turned  and  went  back,  and,  in  the  silence,  Owen 
considered  if  he  had  not  been  too  abrupt.  His  dealings 
with  women  had  -always  been  conducted  with  the  same 
honour  that  characterised  his  dealings  on  the  turf,  but  he 
need  not  have  informed  her  so  early  in  their  acquaintance- 
ship of  his  vow  of  celibacy.  While  he  thought  how  he 
might  retrieve  his  slight  indiscretion,  she  struggled  in  a 
little  crisis  of  soul.  Owen's  words,  tone  of  voice,  manner 
\\-fiv  explicit;  she  could  not  doubt  tlmt  ho  hoped  to  induce 
her  to  leave  her  father,  and  .she  felt  that  she  ought  not  to 


EVELYN  INNES.  49 

see  him  any  more.  She  must  see  him,  she  must  go  out  to 
walk  with  him,  and  her  will  fluttered  like  a  feather  in 
space.  She  remembered  with  a  gasp  that  he  was  the  only 
thing  between  herself  and  Dulwich,  and  at  the  same  mo- 
ment he  decided  that  he  could  not  do  better  than  to  sug- 
gest to  her  that  her  father  was  sacrificing  her  to  his  am- 
bitions. 

"  I  wonder,"  he  said,  assuming  a  meditative  air,  "  what 
will  become  of  you?  Eventually,  I  mean." 

"  What  do  you  think  ? "  Her  eagerness  told  him  that 
he  had  struck  the  right  note. 

"  You  have  grown  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  great  music, 
far  removed  from  the  tendencies  of  our  day.  You  have 
received  from  your  father  an  extraordinary  musical  educa- 
tion. He  has  prepared  you  on  all  points  but  one  for  your 
career,  he  has  not  developed  your  voice;  his  ambition  in- 
tervened  " 

"  You  must  not  say  that.  Father  does  not  allow  his 
ambition  to  interfere  with  his  duties  regarding  me.  You 
only  think  that  because  you  do  not  know  him;  you  don't 
know  all  the  difficulties  he  has  to  contend  with." 

Owen  smiled  inwardly,  pleased  at  the  perception  he  had 
shown  in  divining  her  feelings,  and  he  congratulated  him- 
self on  having  sown  some  slight  seed  of  discontent;  and 
then,  as  if  he  were  withdrawing,  or  at  least  attenuating,  the 
suggestion  he  had  thrown  out,  he  said — 

"  Anyone  can  see  that  you  and  your  father  are  very 
attached  to  each  other." 

"Can  they?" 

"  You  always  like  to  be  near  him,  and  your  favourite 
attitude  is  with  your  hand  on  his  shoulder." 

"  So  many  people  have  noticed  that.  Yes,  I  am  very 
fond  of  father.  We  were  always  very  fond  of  each 
other;  but  now  we  are  more  like  pals  than  father  and 
daughter." 

He  encouraged  her  to  talk  of  herself,  to  tell  him  the 
story  of  her  childhood,  and  how  she  and  her  father  formed 
this  great  friendship.  Evelyn's  story  of  her  mother's  death 
would  have  interested  him  if  he  had  been  able  to  bestow 
sufficient  attention  upon  it,  but  the  intricacy  of  the  in- 
trigue he  was  entering  upon  engrossed  his  thoughts.  There 
were  her  love  of  her  father,  her  duty  towards  him,  and  her 


50  EVELYN  INNES. 

piety  to  be  overcome.  Against  these  three  considerable 
influences  there  were  her  personal  ambition  and  her  love  of 
him.  A  very  evenly  matched  game,  he  thought,  and  for 
nothing  in  the  world  would  he  have  missed  this  love  ad- 
venture. 

At  that  moment  the  words,  "  A  few  days  later  she 
died,"  caught  on  his  ear.  So  he  called  all  the  sorrow  and 
reverence  he  could  into  his  eyes,  sighed,  and  raised  his 
eyebrows  expressing  such  philosophic  resignation  in  our 
mortal  lot  as  might  suffice  to  excuse  a  change  in  the  con- 
versation. 

"  That  is  the  picture  gallery,"  Evelyn  said,  pointing  to 
a  low  brick  building,  almost  hidden  at  the  back  of  a  well- 
kept  garden.  The  unobtrusive  doorway  was  covered  with 
a  massive  creeper,  just  beginning  to  emerge  from  its  win- 
ter's rust.  "  Do  you  care  to  go  in  ?  "  she  said  negligently. 

"  You  know  the  pictures  so  well,  I  am  afraid  they  will 
bore  you." 

"  No,  I  should  like  to  see  them  with  you." 

He  could  see  that  her  aesthetic  taste  had  been  absorbed 
by  music,  and  that  pictures  meant  nothing  to  her,  but  they 
meant  a  great  deal  to  him,  and,  unable  to  resist  the  tempta- 
tion, he  said — 

"  Let  us  go  in  for  a  little  while,  though  it  does  seem  a 
pity  to  waste  this  beautiful  spring  day." 

There  was  an  official  who  took  her  parasol  and  his  cane, 
and  they  were  impressed  by  the  fact  of  having  to.  write 
their  names  side  by  side  in  the  book — Sir  Owen  Asher, 
Evelyn  Innes. 

On  pushing  through  the  swing-door,  they  found  them- 
selves in  a  small  room  hung  with  the  Dutch  school.  There 
were  other  rooms,  some  four  or  five,  opening  one  into  the 
other,  and  lighted  so  that  the  light  fell  sideways  on  to  the 
pictures.  Owen  praised  the  architecture.  It  was,  he  said, 
the  most  perfectly-constructed  gallery  he  had  ever  seen, 
and  he  ought  to  know,  for  he  had  seen  every  gallery  in 
Europe.  But  he  had  not  been  here  for  many  years  and 
had  quite  forgotten  it.  "A  veritable  radiation  of  master- 
pieces," he  said,  stepping  aside  to  see  one.  But  the  girl 
was  the  greater  attraction,  and  only  half  satisfied  he  re- 
turned to  her,  and  when  the  attraction  of  the  pictures 
grew  irresistible,  he  tried  to  engage  her  attention  in  their 


EVELYN  INNES.  51 

beauties,  so  that  he  might  be  allowed  to  enjoy  them.  To 
his  surprise  and  pleasure  the  remarks  he  had  hazarded 
provoked  an  extraordinary  interest  in  her,  and  she  begged 
of  him  to  tell  her  more  about  the  paintings.  He  was  not 
without  a  suspicion  that  the  pictures  were  a  secondary  in- 
terest; but  as  it  was  clear  that  to  hear  him  talk  excited 
her  admiration,  he  favoured  her  with  all  he  knew  regarding 
the  Dutch  school.  She  followed  attentive  as  a  peahen,  he 
spreading  a  gorgeous  tail  of  accumulated  information.  He 
asked  if  the  dark  background  in  Cuyp's  picture,  "  The 
White  Horse  and  the  Riding  School,"  was  not  admirable? 
And  that  old  woman  peeling  onions  in  her  little  kitchen, 
painted  by  a  modern  would  be  realistic  and  vulgar;  but 
the  Dutchman  knew  that  by  light  and  shade  the  meanest 
subject  could  be  made  as  romantic  as  a  fairy  tale.  As 
dreamers  and  thinkers  they  did  not  compare  with  the  Ital- 
ians, but  as  painters  they  were  equal  to  any.  They  were 
the  first  to  introduce  the  trivialities  of  daily  life  into  Art 
— the  toil  of  the  field,  the  gross  pleasures  of  the  tavern. 
"  Look  at  these  boors  drinking ;  they  are  by  Ostade.  Are 
they  not  admirably  drawn  and  painted  ?  '  Brick-making 
in  a  Landscape,  by  Teniers  the  younger.'  Won't  you  look 
at  this  ?  How  beautiful !  How  interesting  is  its  grey  sky ! 
Here  are  a  set  of  pictures  by  Wouvermans — pictures  of 
hawking.  Here  is  a  Brouwer,  a  very  rare  Dutch  master, 
a  very  fine  example  too.  And  here  is  a  Gerard  Dow.  Miss 
Innes,  will  you  look  at  this  composition?  Is  it  not  ad- 
mirable? That  rich  curtain  hung  across  the  room,  how 
beautifully  painted,  how  sonorous  in  colour." 

"  Ah !  she's  playing  a  virginal !  "  said  Evelyn,  suddenly. 
"  She  is  like  me,  playing  and  thinking  of  other  things. 
You  can  see  she  is  not  thinking  of  the  music.  She  is 
thinking  .  .  .  she  is  thinking  of  the  world  outside." 

This  pleased  him,  and  he  said,  "  Yes,  I  suppose  it  is 
like  your  life ;  it  is  full  of  the  same  romance  and  mystery." 

"  What  romance,  what  mystery  ?     Tell  me." 

They  sat  down  on  the  bench  in  the  third  room,  opposite 
the  colonnade  by  Watteau,  to  which  his  thoughts  fre- 
quently went,  while  telling  her  how,  when  cruising  among 
the  Greek  Islands,  he  had  often  seen  her,  sometimes  sit- 
ting in  the  music  room  playing  the  virginal,  sometimes 
walking  in  the  ornamental  park  under  a  wet,  grey  sky, 


52  EVELYN  INNES. 

a  somewhat  desolate  figure  hurrying  through  shadows  of 
storm. 

"  How  strange  you  should  think  all  that !  It  is  quite 
true.  I  often  walked  in  that  hateful  park." 

"  You  will  never  be  able  to  stand  another  winter  in 
Dulwich." 

She  raised  her  eyes,  and  he  noticed  with  an  inward  glee 
their  little,  frightened  look. 

"  I  thought  of  you  in  that  ornamental  park  watching 
London  from  the  crest  of  the  hill;  and  I  tHbught  of  Lon- 
don— great,  unconscious  London — waiting  to  be  awakened 
with  the  chime  of  your  voice." 

She  turned  her  head  aside,  overcome  by  his  praise,  and 
he  exulted,  seeing  the  soft  rose  tint  mount  into  the  white- 
ness of  her  face. 

"  You  must  not  say  such  things  to  me.  How  you  do 
know  how  to  praise !  " 

"  You  don't  realise  how  wonderful  you  are." 

"  You  should  not  say  such  things,  for  if  they  are  not 
true,  I  shall  be  so  miserable." 

"  Of  course  they  are  true,"  he  said,  hushing  his  voice ; 
and  in  his  exultation  there  was  a  savour  of  cruelty.  "  You 
don't  realise  how  wonderful  your  story  is.  As  I  sailed 
through  the  Greek  Isles,  I  thought  less  and  less  of  that  hor- 
rid, red-haired  woman ;  your  face,  dim  at  first,  grew  clearer 
and  clearer.  .  .  .  All  my  thoughts,  all  things  converged 
to  you  and  were  absorbed  in  you,  until,  one  day  on  the 
deck,  I  felt  that  you  were  unhappy;  the  knowledge  came, 
how  and  whence  I  knew  not;  I  only  know  that  the  im- 
pulse to  return  was  irresistible.  I  called  to  the  skipper, 
and  told  him  to  put  her  head  about." 

"  Then  you  did  think  of  me  whilst  you  were  away  ?  " 

Evelyn  looked  at  him  with  her  soft,  female  eyes,  and 
meeting  his  keen,  bright,  male  eyes,  she  drew  away  from 
him  with  a  little  dread.  Immediately  after,  this  sensation 
of  dread  gave  way  to  a  delicious  joy;  an  irresponsible  joy 
deep  down  in  her  heart,  a  joy  so  intimate  that  sho  was 
thankful  to  know  that  none  could  know  it  but  herself. 

Her  woman's  instinct  told  her  that  many  women  had 
loved  him.  She  suspected  that  the  little  lilt  in  his  voice, 
and  the  glance  that  accompanied  it,  were  the  relics  of  an  old 
love  affair.  She  hoped  it  was  not  a  survival  of  Georgina. 


EVELYN  INNES.  53 

"It  must  be  nearly  one  o'clock.  It  is  time  for  you  to 
come  to  talk  to  father  about  the  Greek  hymn." 

"  Let's  look  at  this  picture  first — '  The  Fete  beneath 
the  Colonnade ' — it  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  things  in 
the  world." 


V. 

SIPPING  her  coffee,  her  feet  on  the  fender,  she  aban- 
doned herself  to  memories  of  the  afternoon.  She  had  been 
to  the  Carmelite  Church  in  Kensington,  to  hear  the  music 
of  a  new  and  very  realistic  Belgian  composer;  and,  walk- 
ing down  the  High  Street  after  Mass,  she  and  Owen  had 
argued  his  artistic  intentions.  At  the  end  of  the  High 
Street,  he  had  proposed  that  they  should  walk  in  the  Gar- 
dens. The  broad  walk  was  full  of  the  colour  of  spring 
and  its  perfume,  the  thick  grass  was  like  a  carpet  beneath 
their  feet;  they  had  lingered  by  a  pond,  and  she  had 
watched  the  little  yachts,  carrying  each  a  portent  of  her 
own  success  or  failure.  The  Albert  Hall  curved  over  the 
tops  of  the  trees,  and  sheep  strayed  through  the  deep  May 
grass  in  Arcadian  peacef ulness ;  but  the  most  vivid  im- 
pression was  when  they  had  come  upon  a  lawn  stretching 
gently  to  the  water's  edge.  Owen  had  feared  the  day  was 
too  cold  for  sitting  out,  but  at  that  moment  the  sun  con- 
tradicted him  with  a  broad,  warm  gleam.  He  had  fetched 
two  chairs  from  a  pile  stacked  under  a  tree,  and  sitting  on 
that  lawn,  swept  by  the  shadow  of  softly  moving  trees,  they 
had  talked  an  hour  or  more.  The  scene  came  back  to  her 
as  she  sat  looking  into  the  fire.  She  saw  the  spring,  easily 
victorious  amid  the  low  bushes,  capturing  the  rough 
branches  of  the  elms  one  by  one,  and  the  distant  slopes  of 
the  park,  grey  like  a  piece  of  faded  tapestry.  And  as  in  a 
tapestry,  the  ducks  came  through  the  mist  in  long,  pulsing 
flight,  and  when  the  day  cleared  the  pea  fowl  were  seen 
across  the  water,  sunning  themselves  on  the  high  branches. 
While  watching  the  spectacle  of  the  spring,  Owen  had 
talked  to  Evelyn  about  herself,  and  now  their  entire  con- 
versation floated  back,  transposed  into  a  higher  key. 


54  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  I  want  your  life  to  be  a  great  success." 

u  Do  you  think  anyone's  life  can  be  that  ?  " 

"  That  is  a  long  discussion ;  if  we  seek  the  bottom  of 
things,  none  is  less  futile  than  another.  But  what  passes 
for  success,  wealth  and  renown,  are  easily  within  your 
reach.  ...  If  it  be  too  much  trouble  to  raise  your  hand, 
let  me  shake  the  branches,  and  they'll  fall  into  your  lap." 

"  I  wonder  if  they  would  seem  as  precious  to  me  when 
I  had  got  them  as  they  do  now.  Once  I  did  not  know 
what  it  was  to  despond,  but  I  lost  my  pupils  last  winter, 
and  everything  seemed  hopeless.  I  am  not  vain  or  ego- 
tistic; I  do  not  pine  for  applause  and  wealth,  but  I  should 
like  to  sing.  .  .  .  I've  heard  so  much  about  my  voice  that 
I'm  curious  to  know  what  people  will  think  of  it." 

"  Once  I  was  afraid  that  you  were  without  ambition, 
and  were  content  to  live  unknown,  a  little  suburban  legend, 
a  suburban  might-have-been." 

"  That  was  long  ago.  .  .  .  I've  been  thinking  about 
myself  a  great  deal  lately.  Something  seems  always  crying 
within  me,  'You're  wasting  your  life;  you  must  become 
a  great  singer  and  shine  like  a  star  in  the  world.' " 

"  That  is  the  voice  of  vocation  speaking  within  you,  a 
voice  that  may  not  be  disobeyed.  It  is  what  the  swallows 
feel  when  the  time  for  departure  has  come." 

"  Ah,  yes,  what  the  swallows  feel." 

"A  yearning  for  that  which  one  has  never  known,  for 
distant  places,  for  the  sunshine  which  instinct  tells  us  we 
must  breathe." 

"  Oh,  yes,  that  is  it.  I  used  to  feel  all  that  in  the  after- 
noons in  that  ornamental  park.  I  used  to  stop  in  my  walk, 
for  I  seemed  to  see  far  away,  to  perceive  dimly  as  in  a 
dream,  another  country." 

"  And  since  I  came  back  have  you  wished  to  go  away  ? " 

"No  .  .  .  for  you  come  to  see  me,  and  when  I  go  out 
with  you  I'm  amused." 

"  I'm  afraid  I  do  little  to  amuse  you." 

"You  do  a  great  deal — you  lend  me  books.  I  never 
cared  to  read,  now  I'm  very  fond  of  reading — and  I  think 
more." 

"Of  what  do  you  think?" 

"You  see,  I  nevrr  met  anyone  like  you  before.  You'vo 
travelled;  you've  seen  everything;  you  know  everything 


EVELYN  INNES.  55 

and  everyone.  When  you  come  I  seem  to  see  in  you  all 
the  grand  world  of  fashion." 

"  Which  you  used  to  see  far  away  as  in  a  dream  ? " 

"  No,  the  world  of  fashion  I  did  not  think  of  till  I  saw 
you.  Since  you  came  back  I  have  thought  of  it  a  little. 
You  seem  to  express  it  somehow  in  your  look  and  dress; 
and  the  men  who  nodded  to  you  in  Piccadilly,  and  the 
women  who  bowed  to  you,  all  wore  the  same  look,  and 
when  they  spoke  they  seemed  to  know  all  about  you — where 
you  were  last  summer,  and  where  you  are  going  to  spend 
this  autumn.  Their  friends  are  your  friends;  you're  all 
like  one  family." 

"  You're  very  observant.  I  never  noticed  the  things 
you  speak  of,  but  no  doubt  it  is  so.  But  society  is  ready 
to  receive  you;  society,  believe  me,  is  most  anxious  for 
you." 

After  some  pause  she  heard  him  say — 

"  But  you  must  not  delay  to  go  abroad  and  study." 

"  Tell  me,  do  you  think  the  concerts  will  ever  pay  ?  " 

"  No,  not  in  the  sense  of  your  requirements.  Evelyn, 
since  you  ask  me,  I  must  speak  the  truth.  Those  concerts 
may  come  to  pay  their  expenses,  with  a  little  over,  but  it  is 
the  veriest  delusion  to  imagine  that  they  will  bring  enough 
money  to  take  you  and  your  father  abroad.  Moreover, 
your  father  would  have  to  resign  his  position  at  St.  Jo- 
seph's, where  he  is  required;  there  his  mission  is.  It  is 
painful  for  me  to  tell  you  these  things,  but  I  cannot  see 
you  waste  your  life." 

"  What  you  say  is  quite  true.  .  .  .  I've  known  it  all 
along." 

"  Only  you  have  shut  your  eyes  to  it." 

"  Yes,  that's  it." 

"  Don't  look  so  frightened,  Evelyn.  It  was  better  that 
you  should  be  brought  face  to  face  with  the  truth.  You'll 
have  to  go  abroad  and  study." 

"And  my  father!  Don't  advise  me  to  leave  him.  I 
couldn't  do  that." 

"  Why  make  my  task  more  difficult  than  it  is.  I  wish 
to  be  honest.  I  should  speak  just  the  same,  believe  me,  if 
your  father  were  present.  Is  not  our  first  duty  towards 
ourselves?  The  rest  is  vague  and  uncertain,  the  develop- 
ment of  our  own  faculties  is,  after  all,  that  which  is  most 


56  EVELYN  INNES. 

sure.  .  .  .  I'm  uttering  no  paradox  when  I  say  that  we 
serve  others  best  by  considering  our  own  interests.  Let  us 
svppose  that  you  sacrifice  yourself,  that  you  dedicate  your 
life  to  your  father,  that  you  do  all  that  conventional  moral- 
ity says  you  should  do.  You  look  after  his  house,  you  sing 
at  his  concerts,  you  give  music  lessons.  Ten,  fifteen  years 
pass,  and  then,  remembering  what  might  have  been,  but 
what  is  no  longer  possible,  you  forgive  him,  and  he,  over- 
come with  remorse  for  the  wrong  he  did  you,  sinks  into 
the  grave  broken-hearted." 

"  I  should  at  least  have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that 
I  had  done  my  duty." 

"  Words,  Evelyn,  words.  Take  your  life  into  your  keep- 
ing, go  abroad  and  study,  come  back  a  great  success." 

"  He  would  never  forgive  me." 

"  You  do  not  think  so.  ...  Evelyn,  you  do  not  believe 
that." 

"But  even  if  I  wished  to  leave  home,  I  could  not. 
Where  should  I  get  the  money?  You  have  not  thought 
what  it  would  cost." 

"  Have  you  forgotten  the  knight  that  came  to  release 
the  sleeping  beauty  of  the  woods  from  her  bondage?  Fif- 
teen hundred  or  two  thousand  pounds  would  bo  ample.  I 
can  easily  afford  it." 

"  But  I  cannot  afford  to  accept  it.  Father  would  not 
allow  me." 

"You  can  pay  it  all  back." 

"  Yes,  I  could  do  that.  But  why  don't  you  offer  to  help 
father  instead  ? " 

"  Why  are  you  what  you  are  ?  Why  am  I  interested  in 
you?" 

"  If  I  went  abroad  to  study,  I  should  not  see  you  again 
for  a  long  while — two  years." 

"  I  could  go  to  Paris." 

She  did  not  remember  what  answer  she  had  made,  if 
she  had  made  any  answer,  but  as  she  leaned  forward  and 
stirred  the  fire,  she  saw  his  hands,  their  strength  and 
comeliness,  the  kindliness  of  his  eyes.  She  was  not  sure 
that  he  was  fond  of,  but  she  thought  that  she  could  make 
him  like  her.  At  that  moment  he  seemed  to  take  her  in 
liis  arms  and  kiss  her,  and  the  illusion  w;is  so  vivid  that 
she  was  taken  ill  an  instant's  swoon.  When  her  thoughts 


EVELYN  INNES.  57 

returned  she  found  herself  thinking  of  a  volume  of  verses 
which  had  come  to  be  mentioned  as  they  walked  through 
the  Gardens.  He  had  told  her  of  the  author,  a  Persian 
poet  who  had  lived  in  a  rose-garden  a  thousand  years  ago. 
He  had  compared  life  to  a  rose,  an  exquisite  flower  to  be 
caught  in  the  hand  and  enjoyed  for  a  passionate  moment, 
and  had  recited  many  of  the  verses,  and  she  had  listened, 
enchanted  by  the  rapid  interchange  of  sorrow,  and  glad- 
ness, and  lofty  resignation  before  the  inevitable.  Often  it 
seemed  as  if  her  own  soul  were  speaking  in  the  verses. 
"  So  do  not  refuse  to  accept  the  flowers  and  fruit  that  hang 
in  reach  of  your  hands,  for  to-morrow  you  may  be  where 
there  are  none.  .  .  .  The  caravan  will  have  reached  the 
nothing  it  set  out  from.  .  .  .  Surely  the  potter  will  not 
toss  to  hell  the  pots  he  marred  in  the  making."  She  started 
from  her  reverie  and  suddenly  grew  aware  of  his  very 
words,  "  However  we  may  strive  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  to- 
morrow, we  must  fall  back  on  to-day  as  the  only  solid 
ground  we  have  to  stand  on,  though  it  be  slipping  momen- 
tarily from  under  our  feet."  She  recalled  the  intonation 
of  his  sigh  as  he  spoko  of  the  inscrutable  nature  of  things, 
and  she  wondered  if  he,  too,  with  all  his  friends  and  pos- 
sessions, was  unhappy.  She  seemed  to  have  exhausted  her 
thoughts  about  him,  and  in  the  silence  of  her  mind,  her 
self  came  up  for  consideration.  .  .  .  Owen  intended  to  ask 
her  to  go  away  with  him;  but  he  did  not  intend  to  marry 
her.  It  was  shocking  to  think  that  he  could  be  so  wicked, 
and  then  with  a  thrill  of  pleasure  that  it  would  be  much 
more,  exciting  to  run  away  with  him  than  to  be  married 
to  him  by  Father  Railston.  But  how  very  wicked  of  her  to 
think  such  things,  and  she  was  frightened  to  find  that  she 
could  not  think  differently;  and  with  sensations  of  an 
elopement  clattering  in  her  brain,  she  sat  still  striving  to 
restrain  her  thoughts. 


58  EVELYN  INNES. 


VI. 

ON  leaving  her  at  Victoria,  he  had  walked  down  the 
Buckingham  Palace  Road,  not  quite  knowing  where  he 
was  going.  Suddenly  an  idea  struck  him.  He  put  up  his 
stick,  stopped  a  hansom,  and  drove  to  Georgina;  for  he 
was  curious  to  see  what  impression  she  would  make  upon 
him.  He  spent  an  hour  with  her,  and  returned  to  Berke- 
ley Square  to  dine  alone.  He  was  sure  that  he  cared  no 
more  for  Georgina,  that  she  was  less  than  nothing  to  him. 
He  dismissed  her  from  his  thoughts,  and  fixed  them  on 
Evelyn.  He  had  said  he  would  send  her  a  book.  It  stood 
next  to  his  hand,  on  the  shelf  by  the  round  table  where  he 
wrote  his  articles.  After  dinner  he  would  walk  from  the 
dining-room  into  the  library,  take  down  the  volume  and 
pack  it  up,  leaving  orders  that  it  should  be  sent  off  by  the 
first  post. 

When  man  ceased  to  capture  women,  he  reflected,  man 
invented  art  whereby  he  might  win  them.  The  first  mel- 
ody blown  through  a  reed  pipe  was  surely  intended  for 
woman's  ears.  The  first  verses  were  composed  in  a  like 
intention.  Afterwards  man  began  to  take  an  interest  in 
art  for  its  own  sake.  .  .  .  Women,  having  no  necessity 
for  art,  have  not  been  artists.  The  idea  amused  him,  and 
he  remembered  that  while  Evelyn's  romantic  eyes  and  gold 
hair  were  sufficient  to  win  his  regard,  he  had  availed  him- 
self of  a  dozen  devices  to  tempt  her.  Suddenly  his  face 
grew  grave,  and  he  asked  himself  how  this  flirtation  was  to 
end.  As  a  sufficient  excuse  for  seeing  her  he  was  taking 
music  lessons;  he  wrote  to  her  every  other  day  and  often 
sent  her  books  and  music.  They  had  met  in  London.  .  .  . 
He  had  been  observed  walking  with  her,  and  at  Lady 
Ascott's  lunch  the  conversation  had  suddenly  turned  on  a 
tall  girl  with  gold  hair  and  an  undulating  walk.  Pointed 
observations  had  been  made.  .  .  .  Lady  Lovedale  had 
looked  none  too  well  pleased.  He  didn't  wish  to  be  cyn- 
ical, but  he  did  want  to  know  whether  he  was  going  to 
fall  in  love?  .  .  .  They  had  now  arrived  at  that  point  when 
love-making  or  an  interruption  in  their  intimacy  was  im- 
perative. He  did  not  regret  having  offered  her  the  money 


EVELYN  INNES.  50 

to  go  abroad  to  study,  it  was  well  he  should  have  done  so, 
but  he  should  not  have  said,  "  But  I'll  go  to  see  you  in 
Paris."  She  was  a  clever  girl,  and  knew  as  well  as  he 
how  such  adventures  must  end.  .  .  .  She  was  a  religious 
girl,  a  devout  Catholic,  and  as  he  had  himself  been  brought 
up  in  that  religion,  he  knew  how  it  restrained  the  sexual 
passion  or  fashioned  it  in  the  mould  of  its  dogma.  But 
we  are  animals  first,  we  are  religious  animals  afterwards. 
Religious  defences  must  yield  before  the  pressure  of  the 
more  original  instinct,  unless,  indeed,  hers  was  a  merely 
sexual  conscience.  The  lowest  forms  of  Anglicanism  are 
reduced  to  perceiving  conscience  nowhere  except  in  sex. 
The  Catholic  was  more  concerned  with  matters  of  faith. 
Not  in  France,  Italy  or  Spain  did  Catholicism  enter  so 
largely  into  the  private  life  of  the  individual  as  it  did  in 
England.  The  foreign,  or  to  be  more  exact,  the  native 
Catholic  had  worn  the  yoke  till  it  fitted  loose  on  his  shoul- 
ders. His  was  a  more  eclectic  Christianity;  he  took  what 
suited  him  and  left  the  rest.  But  in  England  Romanism 
had  never  shaken  itself  free  from  the  Anglican  conscience. 
The  convert  never  acquired  the  humanities  of  Rome,  and 
in  addition  the  lover  had  to  contend  against  the  confes- 
sional. But  in  Evelyn's  case  he  could  set  against  the  con- 
fessional the  delirium  of  success,  the  joy  of  art,  the  pas- 
sion of  emulation,  jealousy  and  ambition,  and  last,  but  far 
from  least,  the  ache  of  her  own  passionate  body.  Remem- 
bering the  fear  and  humility  with  which  he  had  been  used 
to  approach  the  priest,  and  the  terror  of  eternal  fire  in  which 
he  had  waited  for  him  to  pronounce  absolution,  Owen 
paused  to  think  how  far  such  belief  was  from  him  now. 
Yet  he  had  once  believed — in  a  way.  He  wondered  at  the 
survival  of  such  a  belief  in  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
asked  himself  if  confession  were  not  inveterate  in  man. 
The  artist  in  his  studio,  the  writer  in  his  study,  strive  to 
tell  their  soul's  secret;  the  peasant  throws  himself  at  the 
feet  of  the  priest,  for,  like  them,  he  would  unburden  him- 
self of  that  terrible  weight  of  inwardness  which  is  man. 
Is  not  the  most  mendacious  mistress  often  taken  with  the 
desire  of  confession  .  .  .  the  wish  to  reveal  herself?  Upon 
this  bed  rock  of  human  nature  the  confessional  has  been 
built.  And  Owen  admired  the  humanity  of  Rome.  Rome 
was  terribly  human.  No  Church,  he  reflected,  was  so 


CO  EVELYN  INNE3. 

human.  Her  doctrine  may  seem  at  times  quaint,  medieval, 
even  gross,  but  when  tested  by  the  only  test  that  can  be 
applied,  power  to  reach  to  human  needs,  and  administer 
consolation  to  the  greatest  number,  the  most  obtuse  minded 
cannot  fail  to  see  that  Rome  easily  distances  her  rivals. 
Her  dogma  and  ceremonial  are  alike  conceived  in  extraor- 
dinary sympathy  with  man's  common  nature.  .  .  . 

Our  lives  are  enveloped  in  mystery,  the  scientist  con- 
cedes that,  and  the  woof  of  which  the  stuff  of  life  is  woven 
is  shot  through  with  many  a  thread  of  unknown  origin, 
untraceable  to  any  earthly  shuttle.  There  is  a  mystery, 
and  in  the  elucidation  of  that  mystery  man  never  tires; 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff  and  the  humblest  crystal  gazer  are 
engaged  in  the  same  adventure.  The  mystery  is  so  intense, 
and  lives  so  intimately  in  all,  that  Rome  dared  to  come 
forward  with  a  complete  explanation.  And  her  necessarily 
perfunctory  explanation  she  drapes  in  a  ritual  so  magnifi- 
cent, that  even  the  philosopher  ceases  to  question,  and 
pauses  abashed  by  the  grandeur  of  the  symbolism.  High 
MMSS  in  its  own  home,  under  the  arches  of  a  Gothic  cathe- 
dral, appealed  alike  to  the  loftiest  and  humblest  intelli- 
gence. Owen  paused  to  think  if  there  was  not  something 
vulgar  in  the  parade  of  the  Mass.  A  simple  prayer 
breathed  by  a  burdened  heart  in  secret  awaked  a  more  im- 
mediate and  intimate  response  in  him.  That  was  Angli- 
canism. Perhaps  he  preferred  Anglicanism.  The  truth 
was,  he  was  deficient  in  the  religious  instinct. 

Awaking  from  his  reverie,  he  raised  himself  from  the 
mantelpiece  against  which  he  was  leaning.  Never  had  he 
thought  so  brilliantly,  and  he  regretted  that  no  magical 
stenographer  should  be  there  to  register  his  thoughts  as 
they  passed.  But  they  were  gone.  .  .  .  Resuming  his  po- 
sition against  the  mantelpiece,  he  continued  his  interrupted 
train  of  thoughts. 

There  would  be  the  priest's  interdiction  .  .  .  unless,  in- 
deed, he  could  win  Evelyn  to  agnosticism.  In  his  own 
case  he  could  imagine  a  sort  of  religious  agnosticism.  But 
is  a  woman  capable  of  such  a  serene  contemplation  and 
comprehension  of  the  mystery,  which  perforce  we  must 
admit  envelops  us,  and  which  often  seems  charged  witli 
murmurs,  recollections  and  warnings  of  the  under  world? 
Does  not  woman  need  the  grosser  aid  of  dogma  to  raise  her 


EVELYN  INNES.  61 

sensual  nature  out  of  complete  abjection  ?  But  all  this  was 
very  metaphysical.  The  probability  was  that  Evelyn  would 
lead  the  life  of  the  ordinary  prima  donna  until  she  was 
fifty,  that  she  would  then  retire  to  a  suburb  in  receipt  of 
a  handsome  income,  and  having  nothing  to  do,  she  would 
begin  to  think  again  of  the  state  of  her  soul.  The  line  of 
her  chin  deflected;  some  would  call  it  a  weak  chin  but  he 
had  observed  the  same  in  men  of  genius — her  father,  for 
instance.  None  could  be  more  resolute  than  he  in  the  pur- 
suance of  his  ideas.  The  mother's  thin,  stubborn  mouth 
must  find  expression  somewhere  in  her  daughter.  But 
where?  Evelyn's  mouth  was  thin  and  it  drooped  at  the 
ends.  .  .  .  But  she  was  only  twenty;  at  five-and-twenty, 
at  thirty,  she  might  be  possessed  by  new  ideas,  new  pas- 
sions. .  .  .  The  moment  we  look  into  life  and  examine  the 
weft  a  little,  what  a  mystery  it  becomes,  how  occult  the  de- 
sign, and  out  of  what  impenetrable  darkness  the  shuttle 
passes,  weaving  a  strange  pattern,  harmonious  in  a  way, 
and  yet  deducible  to  none  of  our  laws!  This  little  adven- 
ture, the  little  fact  of  his  becoming  Evelyn's  lover,  was 
sown  with  every  eventuality.  ...  If,  instead  of  his  win- 
ning her  to  agnosticism,  she  should  win  him  to  Rome! 
Then  they  would  have  to  separate  or  marry,  otherwise  they 
would  burn  in  hell  for  ever. 

Owen  flung  out  his  arms  in  an  admirable  gesture  of 
despair,  and  crossed  the  room.  After  a  while  he  returned 
to  the  fireplace  calmer,  and  considered  the  question  anew. 
By  no  means  did  he  deny  the  existence  of  conscience;  his 
own  was  particularly  exact  on  certain  points.  In  money 
matters  he  believed  himself  to  be  absolutely  straight.  He 
had  never  even  sold  a  friend  a  horse  knowing  it  to  be  un- 
sound; and  he  had  always  avoided — no,  not  making  love 
to  his  friend's  wives — he  had  avoided  making  women  un- 
happy. But  much  more  than  in  morals  his  conscience 
found  expression  in  art.  That  Evelyn  should  use  her 
voice  except  for  the  interpretation  of  masterpieces  would 
shock  him  quite  as  much  as  an  elopement  would  shock  the 
worthy  Fathers  of  St.  Joseph's.  He  smiled  at  his  thoughts, 
and  remembered  that  it  was  through  fear  of  not  making 
a  woman  happy  that  he  had  not  married.  He  hated  un- 
happiness.  His  wish  had  always  been  to  see  people  happy. 
Was  not  that  why  he  wished  to  go  away  with  Evelyn? 


62  EVELYN  IXNES. 

A  particularly  foolish  woman  had  once  told  him  that  she 
liked  going  out  hunting  because  she  liked  to  see  people 
amused  .  .  .  He  did  not  pretend  to  such  altruism  as  hers, 
and  he  remembered  how  he  used  to  watch  for  her  at  the 
window  as  she  came  across  the  square  with  her  dog.  But 
Evelyn  was  quite  different.  He  could  not  have  her  to 
luncheon  or  tea,  and  send  her  back  to  her  father.  Some- 
how, it  would  not  seem  fair  to  her.  No;  he  must  break 
with  her,  or  they  must  go  away  together.  Which  was  it 
to  be?  Mrs.  Hartrick  had  written  three  times  that  week! 
And  there  was  Lady  Lovedale.  She  had  promised  to  come 
to  tea  on  Friday.  Was  he  going  to  renounce  the  list,  or 
was  he  going  to  put  all  his  eggs  in  one  basket?  The  list 
promised  much  agreeable  intercourse,  but  it  was  wholly 
lacking  in  unexpectedness.  He  had  been  through  it  all 
before,  and  knew  how  each  story  would  end.  In  mutual 
indifference  or  in  a  tiff  because  he  wearied  of  accompany- 
ing her  to  all  racecourses  and  all  theatres.  Another  would 
pretend  that  her  husband  was  jealous,  and  that  she  daren't 
come  to  see  him  any  more.  But  Evelyn  would  be  quite 
different.  In  her  case  he  could  not  see  further  than 
driving  to  Charing  Cross  and  getting  into  the  mail  train 
for  Paris.  She  was  worth  the  list,  not  a  doubt  of  it.  If 
he  were  only  sure  that  he  loved  her,  he  would  not  hesitate. 
He  was  interested  in  her,  he  admired  her,  but  did  he  love 
her?  A  genuine  passion  alone  would  make  an  elopement 
excusable. 

Of  course,  there  were  hypocrites  who  would  say  that  he 
had  ruined  her,  robbed  Mr.  Innes  of  his  only  daughter. 
But  he  was  not  concerned  with  conventional,  but  with  real 
morality.  If  he  did  not  go  away  with  her,  what  would 
happen?  He  had  told  her  the  truth  in  the  park  that  morn- 
ing, and  he  believed  every  word  he  had  said.  ...  If  she  did 
not  leave  her  father  she  would  learn  to  hate  him.  It  was 
terrible  to  think  of,  but  it  was  so,  and  nothing  could  change, 
it.  He  tried  to  recall  his  exact  words,  and  easily  imagined 
her  father  stricken  with  remorse,  and  Evelyn  looking 
across  the  table,  hating  him  in  spite  of  herself.  But  if 
he  could  persuade  her  to  leave  him  for  two  years  he  would 
engage  to  bring  her  back  a  great  singer.  And  what  an 
interest  it  would  be  to  watch  the  development  of  that  voice, 
surely  the  most  beautiful  soprano  he  had  ever  heard ! 


EVELYN  INNES.  63 

She  might  begin  with  "  Margaret "  and  "  Norma,"  if  she 
liked,  for  in  singing  these  popular  operas  she  would  ac- 
quire the  whole  of  her  voice,  and  also  the  great  reputation 
which  should  precede  and  herald  the  final  stage  of  her 
career.  "Isolde,"  "  Brunnhilde,"  "  Kundry,"  Wagner's 
finest  works,  had  remained  unsung — they  had  been  merely 
howled.  Evelyn  should  be  the  first  to  sing  them.  His 
eyes  glowed  with  subdued  passion  as  he  thought  of  an 
afternoon,  some  three  years  hence,  in  the  great  theatre 
planned  by  the  master  himself,  when  he  should  see  her  rush 
in  as  'the  Witch  Kundry.  The  marvellous  evocation  of 
Arabia  flashed  upon  him.  .  .  .  Would  he  ever  hear  her 
sing  it?  ...  Yes,  if  she  would  consent  to  go  away  with 
him  he  would  hear  her  sing  it.  But  would  she  go  away 
with  him  ?  Her  Jove  of  her  father,  and  her  religion,  might 
prevent  her.  .  .  .  She  might  not  even  care  for  him.  .  .  . 
She  might  be  thinking  of  marrying  him.  Was  it  possible 
that  she  was  such  a  fool?  What  good  would  it  do  her  to 
marry  him?  She  could  not  go  on  the  stage  as  Lady  Asher. 
Lady  Asher  as  Kundry!  Could  anything  be  more  gro- 
tesque? How  beset  life  was  with  difficulties!  Without 
her  vocation  she  was  no  longer  the  Evelyn  Times  he  was  in 
love  with.  .  .  .  Someone  else,  a  pretty,  interesting  girl, 
the  daughter  of  a  suburban  organist.  To  marry  her  now 
would  be  to  ruin  her.  But  he  might  marry  her  five  or 
six  years  hence,  for  there  was  no  reason  why  she  should 
continue  singing  "  Isolde  "  and  "  Brunnhilde  "  till  she  had 
no  shred  of  voice  left.  When  she  had  established  a  stand- 
ard she  would  have  achieved  her  mission,  then  it  would  be 
for  others  to  maintain  the  standard.  In  the  full  blaze  of 
her  glory  she  might  become  Lady  Asher.  He  would  have 
to  end  his  life  somehow,  that  way  as  well  as  another.  Five 
years  are  a  long  while — anything  might  happen.  She 
might  leave  him  for  someone  else  .  .  .  anything — anything 
— anything  might  happen.  It  was  impossible  to  divine  the 
turn  human  lives  would  take.  The  simple  fact  of  his 
elopement  contained  a  dozen  different  stories  in  germ. 
Each  would  find  opportunities  of  development ;  they  would 
struggle  for  mastery;  which  would  succeed?  .  .  .  Keep 
women  you  couldn't;  he  had  long  ago  found  out  that. 
Marry  them,  and  they  came  to  hate  the  way  you  walked 
across  the  room;  remain  their  lover,  and  they  jilted  you  at 
5 


64  EVELYN  INNES. 

the  end  of  six  months.  He  had  hardly  ever  heard  of  a  liai- 
son lasting  more  than  a  year  or  eighteen  months,  and  Evelyn 
would  meet  all  the  nicest  men  in  Europe.  All  Europe 
would  be  his  rival — really  it  would  be  better  to  give  her 
up.  .  .  .  She  was  the  kind  of  woman  who,  if  she  once  let 
herself  go,  would  play  the  devil.  Turning  from  the  fire 
he  looked  into  the  glass.  .  .  .  He  admitted  to  eight-and- 
thirty,  he  was  forty — a  very  well-preserved  forty.  There 
were  times  when  he  did  not  look  more  than  five-and-thirty. 
His  hair  was  paler  than  it  used  to  be;  it  was  growing  a 
little  thin  on  the  forehead,  otherwise  he  was  the  same  as 
when  he  was  five-and-twenty.  But  he  was  forty,  and  a 
man  of  forty  cannot  marry  a  prima  donna  of  twenty.  Five 
pleasant  years  they  might  have  together,  five  delicious 
years;  it  were  vain  to  expect  more.  But  he  would  not  get 
her  to  go  away  with  him  under  a  promise  of  marriage;  all 
such  deception  he  held  to  be  as  dishonourable  as  cheating 
at  cards.  So  in  their  next  interview  it  would  have  to  be 
suggested  that  there  could  be  no  question  of  marriage,  at 
least  for  the  present.  At  the  same  time  he  would  have  her 
understand  that  he  intended  to  shirk  no  responsibility. 
But  if  he  were  to  tire  of  her!  That  was  another  possibil- 
ity, and  a  hateful  one;  he  would  prefer  that  she  should 
jilt  him.  Perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  give  her  up,  and 
throw  his  fate  in  with  the  list.  But  he  was  tired  of  coun- 
try houses,  and  felt  that  he  could  not  go  through  another 
season's  hunting;  he  had  no  horses  that  suited  him,  and 
didn't  seem  to  be  able  to  find  any.  To  go  abroad  -with 
Evelyn,  watch  over  the  cultivation  of  her  voice,  see  her 
fame  rising,  that  was  his  mission!  The  only  question  to 
decide  was  whether  he  was  in  love  with  her.  He  would 
not  hesitate  a  moment  if  he  were  only  sure  of  that.  Ho 
thought  of  the  women  he  knew.  Georghm  was  the  first 
to  come  up  in  his  mind.  He  had  been  to  see  her,  and  had 
come  away  at  a  loss  to  understand  what  he  had  ever  seen 
in  her.  She  had  struck  him  as  vulgar  and  middle-class, 
sly,  with  a  taste  for  intrigue.  He  remembered  that  was 
how  she  had  struck  him  when  he  first  saw  her.  But  if 
anyone  had  described  her  as  vulgar  and  middle-class  six 
months  ago.  Good  heavens! 


EVELYN  1NNES.  65 


VII. 

THE  day  grew  too  fine,  as  he  said,  for  false  notes,  so  the 
music  lesson  was  abandoned,  and  they  went  to  sit  in  the 
garden  behind  the  picture  gallery,  a  green  sward  with  high 
walls  covered  with  creeper,  and  at  one  end  a  great  cedar 
with  a  seat  built  about  the  trunk;  a  quiet  place  rife  with 
songs  of  birds,  and  unfrequented  save  by  them.  They  had 
taken  with  them  Omar's  verses,  and  Evelyn  hoped  that 
he  would  talk  to  her  about  them,  for  the  garden  of  the 
Persian  poet  she  felt  to  be  separated  only  by  a  wicket 
from  theirs.  But  Owen  did  not  respond  to  her  humour, 
lie  was  prepense  to  argue  about  the  difficulties  of  her  life, 
and  of  the  urgent  necessity  of  vanquishing  these. 

He  had  noticed,  he  said,  as  they  sat  in  the  park,  that 
she  had  a  weak  face.  Her  thoughts  were  far  away;  he 
had  caught  her  face,  as  it  were,  napping,  and  had  seen 
through  it  to  the  root  of  her  being.  The  conclusion  at 
which  he  had  arrived  was  that  she  was  not  capable  of  lead- 
ing an  independent  life. 

"  Am  I  not  right?     Isn't  it  so?  " 

"  You  think  that  because  I  don't  leave  father  and  go 
abroad." 

"You  might  go  abroad  and  lead  a  dependent  life;  you 
might  stay  at  home  and  lead  an  independent  life." 

He  asked  her  what  offers  of  marriage  she  had  had. 

One  was  from  the  Vicar,  a  widower,  a  man  of  fifty,  the 
other  from  a  young  man  in  a  solicitor's  office.  She  did  not 
care  for  either,  and  had  not  entertained  their  proposals  for 
a  second. 

"  If  you  marry  anyone,  it  must  be  a  duke.  Life  is  a 
battle;  society  will  get  the  better  of  us  unless  we  get  the 
better  of  society.  Everyone  must  realise  that — every 
young  man,  every  young  woman.  We  must  conquer  or  be 
conquered." 

Society,  he  argued,  did  not  require  a  chaperon  from 
her;  society  would,  indeed,  resent  a  chaperon  if  she  were  to 
appear  with  one.  Society  not  only  granted  her  freedom, 
but  demanded  that  she  should  exercise  it.  As  a  freelance 
she  would  be  taken  notice  of,  as  a  respectable  marriageable 


66  EVELYN  INNES. 

girl  she  would  be  passed  over.  The  cradle  and  the  master- 
piece were  irreconcilable  ideals.  He  drew  an  amusing  pic- 
ture of  the  prima  donna's  husband,  the  fellow  who  waits 
with  a  scarf  ready  to  wind  it  round  the  throat  of  his  mu- 
sical instrument;  the  fellow  who  is  always  on  the  watch 
lest  someone  should  walk  off  with  his  means  of  subsistence. 
Evelyn  listened  because  she  liked  to  hear  him  talk;  she 
knew  that  he  was  trying  to  influence  her  with  argument, 
but  it  was  he  himself  who  was  influencing  her,  she  dreaded 
his  presence,  not  his  argument. 

She  got  up  and  walked  across  the  sward;  and  as  they 
returned  through  the  flowery  village  street,  the  faint  May 
breeze  shed  the  white  chestnut  bloom  about  their  feet.  It 
seemed  to  him  better  to  say  nothing;  there  are  times  when 
silence  is  more  potent  than  speech.  They  were  walking 
under  the  trees  of  the  old  Dulwich  street,  and  so  charming 
were  the  hedge-hidden  gardens,  and  the  eighteenth-century 
houses  with  white  porticoes,  that  Owen  could  not  but  think 
Dulwich  at  that  moment  seemed  the  natural  nativity  of  the 
young  girl's  career.  A  few  moments  after  they  were  at 
Dowlands.  She  was  trembling,  and  had  no  strength  of 
will  to  refuse  to  ask  him  in.  She  would  have  had  the 
strength  if  she  had  not  been  obliged  to  give  him  her  hand. 
She  had  tried  to  bid  him  good-bye  without  giving  her  hand, 
and  had  not  succeeded,  and  while  he  held  her  hand  her  lips 
said  the  words  without  her  knowing  it.  She  spoke  un- 
consciously, and  did  not  know  what  she  had  said  till  she 
had  said  it. 

And  while  they  waited  for  tea,  Evelyn  lay  back  in  a 
wicker  chair  thinking.  He  had  said  that  life  without  love 
was  a  desert,  and  many  times  the  conversation  trembled  on 
the  edge  of  a  personal  avowal,  and  now  he  was  playing  love 
music  out  of  "  Tristan  "  on  the  harpsichord.  The  gnawing, 
creeping  sensuality  of  the  phrase  brought  little  shudders 
into  her  flesh;  all  life  seemed  dissolved  into  a  dim  tremor 
and  rustling  of  blood;  vague  colour  floated  into  her  eyes, 
and  there  were  moments  when  she  could  hardly  restrain 
herself  from  jumping  to  her  feet  and  begging  of  him  to 
stop.  .  .  .  The  servant  brought  in  the  tea,  and  she  thought 
she  would  feel  better  when  the  music  erased.  But  neither 
did  the  silence  nor  the  tea  help  her.  He  sat  opposite  her, 
his  eyes  fixed  upon  her,  that  half-kindly,  half-cynical  face 


EVELYN  INNES.  67 

of  his  showing  through  the  gold  of  his  moustache.  lie 
seemed  to  know  that  she  could  not  follow  the  conversation, 
and  seemed  determined  to  drive  the  malady  that  was  de- 
vouring her  to  a  head.  He  continued  to  speak  of  the  mo- 
tive of  the  love  call,  how  it  is  interwoven  with  the  hunting 
fanfare;  when  the  fanfare  dies  in  the  twilight,  how  it  is 
then  heard  in  the  dark  loneliness  of  the  garden.  She  heard 
him  speak  of  the  handkerchief  motive,  of  thirty  violins 
playing  three  notes  in  ever  precipitated  rhythm,  until  we 
feel  that  the  world  reels  behind  the  woman,  that  only  one 
thing  exists  for  her — Tristan.  A  giddiness  gathered  in 
Evelyn's  brain,  and  she  fell  back  in  her  chair,  slightly  to 
the  left  side,  and  letting  her  hand  slip  towards  him,  said, 
with  a  beseeching  look — 

"I  cannot  go  on  talking,  I  am  too  tired." 

It  seemed  as  if  she  were  going  to  faint,  and  this  made 
it  easy  and  natural  for  him  to  take  her  hand,  to  put  his 
arm  about  her,  and  then  to  whisper — 

"  Evelyn,  dear,  what  is  the  matter  ?  " 

She  opened  her  eyes;  their  look  was  sufficient  an- 
swer. 

"  Dearest  Evelyn,"  he  said ;  and  bending  over,  he  kissed 
her  on  the  cheek. 

"  This  is  very  foolish  of  me,"  she  said,  and  throwing  her 
arm  about  his  neck,  she  kissed  him  on  the  mouth.  "  Biit 
you  are  fond  of  me  ? "  she  said  impulsively,  laying  her  hand 
on  his  shoulder.  It  was  a  movement  full  of  affectionate 
intimacy. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  moving  her  face  again  towards  him. 
"  I  love  you,  I've  always  loved  you." 

"  No,"  she  said,  "you  didn't,  not  always;  I  know  when 
you  began  to  care  for  me." 

"When?" 

"  When  you  returned  from  Greece,  at  the  moment  when 
you  said  you  wanted  me  to  like  you.  Is  it  not  true  ?  " 

Owen  dared  not  tell  her  that  it  was  at  the  moment  of 
kissing  her  that  he  had  really  begun  to  love  her.  In  that 
moment  he  had  entered  into  her  atmosphere;  it  was  fra- 
grant as  a  flower,  and  it  had  decided  him  to  use  every 
effort  to  become  her  lover. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  you  must  not  kiss  me  again." 

She  got  up  from  the  low  wicker  chair;  he  followed  her, 


68  EVELYN  INNES. 

and  they  sat  close  together  on  two  low  seats.  lie  put  his 
arm  round  her  and  said — 

"  I  love  to  kiss  you.  .  .  .  Why  do  you  turn  away  your 
head?" 

"  Because  it  is  wrong ;  I  shall  be  miserable  to-night." 

"  You  don't  think  it  wrong  to  kiss  me  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  do." 

Then  turning  her  face  to  his,  she  kissed  him. 

"  She'll  be  adorable,"  he  thought,  "  and  in  four  years 
the  greatest  singer  in  England.  I  shall  get  very  fond  of 
her.  I  like  her  very  much  as  it  is,  and  when  she  gets 
over  her  religious  scruples — when  I've  reformed  her — she'll 
be  enchanting.  It  is  lucky  she  met  me;  without  me  she'd 
have  come  to  nothing." 

She  asked  him  what  he  was  thinking  about,  and  he 
answered  of  the  happiness  he  had  begun  to  feel  was  in 
store  for  them. 

"  What  happiness  ?  "  she  asked ;  and  he  answered — 

"  The  happiness  of  seeing  each  other  constantly — the 
happiness  of  layers.  Now  we  must  see  each  other  more 
often." 

"  How  often  ?     Every  day  ?  " 

He  wondered  what  was  the  exact  colour  of  her  eyes, 
and  he  pressed  her  to  answer.  At  last  she  said — 

"  You  cannot  come  here  of  tener  than  you  do  at  present. 
I'm  deceiving  father  about  these  lessons.  What  will  you 
do  if  he  asks  you  to  play  to  him?  What  excuse  will  you 
give?  You  daren't  attempt  the  simplest  exercise,  you 
haven't  got  over  the  difference  of  the  bowing;  you'd  piny 
false  notes  all  the  time." 

"  Yes,"  he  said ;  "  I've  not  made  much  progress, 
have  I?" 

"  No,  you  haven't ;  but  that  isn't  my  fault." 

"  But  the  days  I  don't  see  you  seem  so  long !  " 

"Do  you  think  they  do  not  seem  long  to  me?  I've 
nothing  to  think  about  but  you." 

"  Then,  on  your  weariest  days,  come  and  see  me.  We 
can  always  see  each  other  in  Berkeley  Square.  Send  me  a 
wire  saying  you  are  coming." 

"  I  could  not  come  to  see  you,"  she  said,  still  looking  at 
him  fixedly;  "you  know  that  I  could  not.  .  .  .  Then  why 
do  you  ask  me  i  " 


EVELYN  INNES.  C9 

"  Because  I  want  you." 

"  You  know  that  I'd  like  to  come." 

"  Then,  if  you  do,  you'll  come.  I  don't  believe  in 
temptations  that  we  don't  yield  to." 

"  I  suppose  that  the  temptation  that  we  yield  to  is  the 
temptation  ?  " 

"  Of  course.  But,  Evelyn,  you  are  not  going  to  waste 
your  life  in  Dulwich.  Come  and  see  me  to-morrow  and, 
if  you  like,  we'll  decide." 

"On  what?" 

"  You  know  what  I  mean,  dearest." 

"  Yes,  I  think  I  do,"  she  said,  smiling  at  once  sadly  and 
ardently ;  "  but  I'm  afraid  it  wouldn't  succeed.  I'm  not 
the  kind  of  woman  to  play  the  part  to  advantage." 

"  I'm  very  fond  of  you,  and  I  think  you're  very  fond 
of  me." 

"  You  don't  think  about  it — you  know  I  am." 

"  Then  why  did  you  say  you  would  not  come  and 
see  me  ? " 

"  I  did  not  say  so.  But  something  tells  me  that  if  I 
did  go  away  with  you  it  would  not  succeed." 

"  Why  do  you  think  that?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  Something  whispers  that  it  wouldn't 
succeed.  All  my  people  were  good  people — my  mother,  my 
grandmother,  my  aunts.  I  never  had  a  relative  against 
whom  anything  could  be  said,  so  I  don't  know  why  I  am 
what  I  am.  For  I'm  only  half  good.  It  is  you  who  make 
mo  bad,  Owen;  it  isn't  nice  of  you."  She  flung  her  arms 
about  him,  and  then  recoiled  from  him  in  a  sudden  revul- 
sion of  feeling. 

"  When  you  go  away  I  shall  be  miserable;  I  shall  repent 
of  all  this  .  .  .  I'm  horrid."  She  covered  her  face  in  her 
hands.  "  I  didn't  know  1  was  like  this." 

A  moment  after  she  reached  out  her  hand  to  him, 
saying — 

"  You're  not  angry  with  me  ?  I  can't  help  it  if  I'm  like 
this.  I  should  like  to  go  and  see  you;  it  would  be  so  much 
to  me.  But  I  must  not.  But  why  mustn't  I  ?  " 

"  I  know  no  reason,  except  that  you  don't  care  for  me." 

"  But  you  know  that  isn't  so." 

"  Come,  dearest,  be  reasonable.  You're  not  going  to  stop 
here  all  your  life  playing  the  viola  da  gamba.  The  hour 


70  EVELYN  INNES. 

of  departure  has  come,"  he  said,  perceiving  her  very 
thought ;  "  be  reasonable,  come  and  see  me  to-morrow. 
Come  to  lunch,  and  I'll  arrange.  You  know  that  you — 

"  Yes,  I  believe  that,"  she  said,  in  response  to  a  change 
which  had  come  into  her  appreciation.  "  But  can  I  trust 
myself?  Suppose  I  did  go  away,  and  repented  and  left 
you.  Where  should  I  go?  I  could  not  come  back  here, 
rather  would  forgive  me,  I  dare  say,  but  I  could  not  come 
back  here." 

" '  Repented.'  Those  are  fairy  tales,"  he  said,  lifting 
her  gold  hair  from  her  ear  and  kissing  it.  "  A  woman 
does  not  leave  the  man  who  adores  her." 

"  You  told  me  they  often  did." 

"  How  funny  you  are.  .  .  .  They  do  sometimes,  but  not 
because  they  repent." 

Her  head  was  on  his  shoulder,  and  she  stood  looking  at 
him  a  long  while  without  speaking. 

"Then  you  do  love  me,  dearest?     Tell  me  so  again." 

Kissing  her  gently  on  the  mouth  and  eyes,  he  an- 
swered— 

"  You  know  very  well  that  I  do.  Come  and  see  me  to- 
morrow. Say  you  will,  for  I  must  go  now." 

•"Go  now!" 

"  Do  you  know  what  time  it  is?     It  is  past  seven." 

She  followed  him  to  the  gate  of  the  little  garden.  The 
lamps  were  lighted  far  away  in  the  suburbs.  Again  he 
asked  her  to  come  and  see  him. 

"I  cannot  to-morrow;  to-morrow  will  be  Sunday." 

His  footsteps  echoed  through  the  chill  twilight,  :ind 
seeing  a  thin  moon  afloat  like  a  feather  in  the  sky,  she 
thought  of  Omar's  moon,  that  used  to  sock  the-  lovers  in 
their  garden,  and  that  one  evening  sought  one  o*  them  in 
vain. 


VIII. 

TMERF.  was  no  other  plaee  except  the  picture  gallery 
where  they  could  see  each  other  alone.  But  the  dignity  <>f 
Yel:is<nir/,  and  I  he  opulence  of  Rubens  distracted  their 
thoughts,  and  they  were  ill  at  ease  on  a  backless  scat  in 


EVELYN  INNES.  71 

front  of  a  masterpiece.  Owen  regretted  the  Ilobbema;  it 
was  less  aggressive  than  the  colonnade.  A  sun-lit  clearing 
in  a  wood  and  a  water  mill  raised  no  moral  question.  He 
turned  his  eyes  from  the  dancers,  but  however  he  resisted 
them,  their  frivolous  life  found  its  way  into  the  conversa- 
tion. They  were  the  wise  ones,  he  said.  They  lived  for 
art  and  love,  and  what  else  was  there  in  life?  A  few 
sonatas,  a  few  operas,  a  few  pictures,  a  few  books,  and  a 
love  story;  we  had  always  to  come  back  to  that  in  the  end. 
He  spoke  with  conviction,  his  only  insincerity  being  the 
alteration  of  a  plural  into  a  singular.  But  no,  he  did  not 
think  he  had  lied;  he  had  spoken  what  seemed  to  him  the 
truth  at  the  present  moment.  Had  he  used  the  singular 
instead  of  the  plural  a  fortnight  ago,  he  would  have  lied, 
but  within  the  last  week  his  feelings  for  Evelyn  had 
changed.  If  she  had  broken  with  him  a  week  ago,  he  would 
have  found  easy  consolation  in  the  list,  but  now  it  was  not 
women,  but  a  woman  that  he  desired.  A  mere  sexual  curi- 
osity, and  the  artistic  desire  to  save  a  beautiful  voice  from 
being  wasted,  had  given  way  to  a  more  personal  emotion  in 
which  affection  was  beginning.  Looking  at  him,  thinking 
over  what  he  had  just  said,  unable  to  stifle  the  hope  that 
those  women  in  the  picture  were  the  wise  ones,  she  hoard 
life  calling  her.  The  art  call  and  the  love  call,  subtly  in- 
terwoven, were  modulated  now  on  the  violins,  now  on  the 
flutes  of  an  invisible  orchestra.  At  the  same  moment  his 
immeshed  senses,  like  greedy  fish,  swam  hither  and  thither, 
perplexed  and  terrified,  finding  no  way  of  escape,  and  he 
dreaded  lest  he  had  lost  his  balance  and  fallen  into  the  net 
he  had  cast  so  often.  He  had  begun  to  see  that  she  was 
afraid  of  the  sin,  and  not  at  all  of  him.  She  had  never 
asked  him  if  he  would  always  love  her — that  she  seemed 
to  take  for  granted — and  he  had,  or  fancied  he  had,  begun 
to  feel  that  he  would  never  cease  to  love  her.  He  looked 
into  the  future  far  enough  to  see  that  it  would  be  she  who 
would  tire  of  him,  and  that  another  would  appear  two  or 
three  years  hence  who  would  appeal  to  her  sensual  imag- 
ination just  as  he  did  to-day,.  She  would  strive  to  resist 
it,  she  would  argue  with  herself,  but  the  enticing  illusion 
would  draw  her  as  in  a  silken  net.  He  was  now  engaged 
in  the  destruction  of  her  moral  scruples — in  other  words, 
making  the  way  easy  for  his  successor. 


72  EVELYN  INNES. 

They  were  in  the  gallery  alone,  and,  taking  her  hand, 
he  considered  in  detail  the  trouble  this  liaison  would  bring 
in  its  train.  He  no  longer  doubted  that  she  would  go 
abroad  with  him  sooner  or  later.  He  hoped  it  would  be 
sooner,  for  he  had  begun  to  perceive  the  absurdity  of  his 
visits  to  Dulwich.  The  question  was  whether  she  was 
worth  an  exile  in  a  foreign  country.  He  would  have  to 
devote  himself  to  her  and  to  her  interests.  She  would 
have  a  chaperon.  There  would  be  no  use  in  their  openly 
living  together — that  he  could  not  stand.  But  at  that  mo- 
ment the  exquisite  happiness  of  seeing  her  every  day,  coin- 
ing into  the  room  where  she  was  reading  or  singing,  and 
kissing  her  as  he  leaned  over  her  chair,  affectionately,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  deriving  his  enjoyment  from  the  pre- 
scriptive right  to  do  so,  and  then  talking  to  her  about  or- 
dinary affairs  of  life,  came  upon  him  suddenly  like  a 
vision;  and  this  imagined  life  was  so  intense  that  for  one 
moment  it  was  equivalent  to  the  reality.  He  saw  himself 
taking  her  home  from  the  theatre  at  night  in  the  brougham. 
In  the  next  instant  they  were  in  the  train  going  to  Bay- 
reuth.  In  the  next  he  saw  her  as  Kundry  rush  on  to  the 
stage.  He  felt  that,  whatever  it  cost  him,  that  was  the 
life  he  must  obtain.  He  felt  that  he  could  not  live  if  he 
did  not  acquire  it,  and  so  intense  was  the  vision  that,  un- 
able to  endure  its  torment,  he  got  up  and  proposed  they 
should  go  into  the  garden  and  sit  under  the  cedar. 

They  were  alone  in  the  garden  as  they  were  in  the 
gallery,  but  lovers  are  averse  to  open  spaces,  and  O\\vn 
felt  that  their  appearance  coincided  too  closely  with  that 
of  lovers  in  many  popular  engravings.  He  hoped  he  was 
not  observed,  and  regretted  he  had  often  spoken  of  the  pic- 
ture gallery  to  his  friends.  An  unlucky  chance  might 
bring  one  of  them  down. 

It  was  in  this  garden,  amid  the  scent  and  colour  of 
May,  that  the  most  beautiful  part  of  their  love  story  was 
woven.  It  was  in  this  garden  that  they  talked  about  love 
and  happiness,  and  the  mystery  of  the  attraction  of  one 
person  to  another,  and  whilst  listening  to  him,  a  poignant 
memory  of  the  afternoon  when  he  had  first  kissed  her 
often  crossed  her  mind.  It  was  in  this  garden  that  they 
forgot  each  other.  Their  thoughts  wandered  far  away, 
and  then,  when  one  called  the  other's  attention,  he  or  she 


EVELYN  INNES.  73 

relinquished  scenes  and  sensations  and  came  back,  appear- 
ing suddenly  like  someone  out  of  a  mist.  Each  asked  the 
other  what  he  or  she  had  been  dreaming.  Once  he  told 
her  his  dream.  It  was  of  a  villa  in  the  middle  of  a  large 
garden  surrounded  by  chestnut  trees  and  planted  with 
rhododendrons.  In  this  villa  there  dwelt  a  great  singer 
whose  name  was  a  glory  in  the  world,  and  to  this  villa 
there  came  very  often  a  tall,  thin,  ugly  man,  and,  seeing 
the  beautiful  singer  walking  with  him,  the  folk  wondered 
how  she  could  love  him. 

It  was  a  sort  of  delicious  death,  a  swooning  ecstasy,  an 
absprption  of  her  individuality  in  his.  Just  as  the  spring 
gradually  displaced  the  winter  by  a  new  branch  of  blos- 
som, and  in  that  corner  of  the  garden  by  the  winsome 
mauve  of  a  lilac  bush,  without  her  knowing  it  his  ideas 
caught  root  in  her.  New  thoughts  and  perceptions  were 
in  growth  within  her,  and  every  day  she  discovered  the 
new  where  she  had  been  accustomed  to  meet  the  familiar 
idea.  She  seemed  to  be  slipping  out  of  herself  as  out  of  a 
soft,  white  garment,  unconsciously,  without  any  effort  on 
her  part. 

Very  often  they  discussed  whether  sacrifice  of  self  is  not 
the  first  of  the  sins  against  life.  "  That  is  the  sin,"  he  said, 
"  that  cries  loudest  to  Nature  for  vengeance.  To  discover 
our  best  gift  from  Nature,  and  to  cultivate  that  gift,  is  the 
first  law  of  life."  If  she  could  not  accept  this  theory  of  life 
as  valid  and  justifiable,  she  had  at  least  begun  to  consider 
it.  Another  of  Owen's  ideas  that  interested  her  was  his 
theory  of  beauty.  He  said  that  he  could  not  accept  the 
ordinary  statement  that  a  woman  was  beautiful  and  stupid. 
Beauty  and  stupidity  could  not  exist  in  the  same  face, 
stupidity  being  the  ugliest  thing  on  earth;  and  he  contend- 
ed that  two-thirds  of  human  beauty  were  the  illumination 
of  matter  by  the  intelligence,  and  but  one-third  proportion 
and  delicacy  of  line.  After  some  hesitation,  he  admitted 
that  at  first  he  had  been  disappointed  in  her,  but  now  every- 
thing about  her  was  an  enchantment,  and  when  she  was 
not  present,  he  lived  in  memories  of  her.  He  spoke  without 
emphasis,  almost  as  if  he  were  speaking  to  himself,  and  she 
could  not  answer  for  delight. 

Her  father  was  vaguely  conscious  of  some  change  in  his 
daughter,  and  when  one  day  he  heard  her  singing  "  Faust," 


74  EVELYN  INNES. 

he  was  perplexed ;  and  when  she  argued  that  it  was  a  beau- 
tiful and  human  aspiration,  he  looked  at  her  as  if  he  had 
never  seen  her  before.  He  asked  her  how  she  had  come 
to  think  such  a  thing,  and  was  perplexed  by  her  embarrass- 
ments. She  was  sorry  for  her  liking  for  Gounod's  melo- 
dies. It  seemed  to  alienate  them;  they  seemed  to  have 
drifted  apart.  She  saw  a  silently  widening  distance,  as  if 
two  ships  were  moving  away.  One  day  he  asked  her  if  she 
were  going  to  communion  next  Sunday.  She  answered 
that  she  did  not  think  so,  and  sat  thinking  a  long  while, 
for  she  had  become  suddenly  aware  that  she  was  not  as 
pious  as  she  used  to  be.  She  did  not  think  that  Owen's 
arguments  had  touched  her  faith,  but  she  no  longer  felt 
the  same  interest  in  religion;  and  in  thinking  over  this 
change,  which  seemed  so  independent  of  her  own  will,  she 
grew  pensive  and  perplexed.  Her  melancholy  was  a  sort  of 
voluptuous  meditation.  She  was  conscious  all  the  while 
of  Owen's  presence.  It  was  as  if  he  were  standing  by  her, 
and  she  felt  that  he  must  be  thinking  of  her. 

He  had  often  spoken  of  going  away  with  her;  she  had 
smiled  plaintively, never  regarding  an  elopement  as  possible. 
But  one  evening  her  father  had  gone  to  dine  with  a  certain 
Roman  prelate  who  believed  in  the  advantage  to  the  Catho- 
lic Church  of  a  musical  reformation.  And  she  had  gone  to 
meet  Owen,  who  had  driven  from  London.  They  had 
walked  two  hours  in  the  lanes,  and  when  she  got  home  she 
ran  to  her  room  and  undressed  hurriedly,  thinking  how 
delightful  it  would  be  to  lie  awake  in  the  dark  and  remem- 
ber it  all.  And  feeling  the  cool  sheets  about  her  she  folded 
her  arms  and  abandoned  herself  to  every  recollection.  Her 
imagination,  heightened  as  by  a  drug,  enabled  her  to  see 
the  white,  dusty  road  and  the  sickly,  yellow  moon  rising 
through  the  branches.  Again  she  was  standing  by  him,  her 
arms  were  on  his  neck;  again  they  stood  looking  into  the 
vague  distance,  seeing  the  broken  paling  in  the  moonlight. 
There  were  his  eyes  and  hands  and  lips  to  think  about,  and 
when  she  had  exhausted  these  memories,  others  sprang  upon 
her.  It  was  in  very  centre  of  her  being  that  she  was  think- 
ing of  the  moment  when  she  had  spied  his  horse's  head  over 
the  hill  top.  She  had  recognised  his  silhouette  against  the 
sky.  He  had  whipped  up  the  horse,  he  had  thrown  the 
reins  to  the  groom,  he  had  sprung  from  the  step.  The 


EVELYN  INNES.  75 

evening  was  then  lighted  by  the  sunset,  and  as  the  sky 
darkened,  their  love  seemed  to  grow  brighter.  In  com- 
parison with  this  last  meeting,  all  past  meetings  seemed 
shadowy  and  unreal.  She  had  never  loved  him  before,  and 
if  her  smile  had  dwindled  when  he  asked  her  to  come  away 
with  him,  she  had  liked  to  hear  him  say  the  dogcart  was 
waiting  at  the  inn.  But  when  they  stood  by  the  stile  where 
cattle  were  breathing  softly,  and  the  moon  shone  over  the 
sheepfold  like  a  shepherd's  lantern,  her  love  had  grown  wil- 
ful, and  she  had  liked  to  say  that  she  would  go  away  with 
him.  She  knew  not  whether  she  could  fulfil  her  promise, 
but  it  had  been  a  joy  to  give  it.  They  had  walked  slowly 
towards  Dulwich,  the  groom  had  brought  round  the  dog- 
cart; Owen  had  asked  her  once  more  to  get  in.  Oh,  to 
drive  away  with  him  through  the  night !  "  Owen,  it  is  im- 
possible," she  had  said ;  "  I  cannot,  at  least  not  now.  But 
I  will  one  day  very  soon,  sooner  perhaps  than  you  think." 

He  had  driven  away,  and,  standing  on  the  moon- 
whitened  road,  she  had  watched  the  white  dust  whirl  about 
the  wheels. 

One  of  the  difficulties  in  the  indulgence  of  these  medita- 
tions was  that  they  necessitated  the  omission  of  her  even- 
ing prayers.  She  could  not  kneel  by  her  bedside  and  pray 
to  God  to  deliver  her  from  evil,  all  the  while  nourishing  in 
hor  heart  the  intention  of  abandoning  herself  to  the 
thought  of  Owen  the  moment  she  got  into  bed.  Nor  did 
the  omission  of  her  evening  prayers  quite  solve  the  diffi- 
culty, for  when  she  could  think  no  more  of  Owen,  the  fear 
of  God  returned.  She  dared  not  go  to  sleep,  and  lay  ter- 
rified, dreading  the  devil  in  every  corner  of  the  room.  Lest 
she  might  die  in  her  sleep  and  be  summoned  before  the 
judgment  seat,  she  lay  awake  as  long  as  she  could. 

When  she  fell  asleep  she  dreamed  of  the  stage  when  the 
world  was  won,  and  when  it  seemed  she  had  only  to  stretch 
her  hands  to  the  sky  to  take  the  stars.  But  in  the  midst 
of  her  triumph  she  perceived  that  she  could  no  longer  sing 
the  music  the  world  required;  a  new  music  was  drumming' 
in  her  ears,  drowning  the  old  music,  a  music  written  in  a 
melancholy  mode,  and  played  on  invisible  harps.  Owen  told 
her  it  was  madness  to  listen,  and  she  strove  to  close  her  ears 
against  it.  In  great  trouble  of  mind  she  awoke;  it  was 
only  a  dream,  and  she  had  not  lost  her  voice.  She  lay  back 


76  EVELYN  INNES. 

upon  the  pillow  and  tried  to  recall  the  music  which  she  had 
heard  on  the  invisible  harps,  but  already  it  was  forgotten ; 
it  faded  from  her  brain  like  mist  from  the  surface  of  a 
mere.  But  the  humour  that  the  dream  had  created  endured 
after  the  dream  was  dead.  She  no  longer  felt  as  she  had  felt 
over  night,  and  lay  in  a  sort  of  obtuse  sensibility  of  con- 
science. She  got  up  and  dressed,  her  mind  still  clouded  and 
sullen,  and  her  prayers  were  said  in  a  sort  of  middle  state 
between  fervour  and  indifference.  Her  father  attributed 
her  mood  to  the  old  cause;  several  times  he  was  on  the 
point  of  speaking;  and  she  held  him  for  the  moment  by 
the  lappet  of  his  coat  and  looked  affectionately  into  his 
face.  But  something  told  her  that  if  she  were  to  confide 
her  trouble  to  anyone,  she  would  lose  the  power  she  had 
acquired  over  herself.  Something  told  her  that  all  the 
strength  on  her  side  was  reposed  in  the  secrecy  of  the  com- 
bat. If  it  were  known,  she  could  imagine  herself  saying — 

"  Well,  nothing  matters  now ;  let  us  go  away,  Owen." 

He  was  coming  to  see  her  between  eleven  and  twelve — 
at  the  very  time  he  knew  her  father  would  be  away  from 
home,  and  this  very  fact  stimulated  her  ethical  perception. 
Her  manner  was  in  accordance  with  her  mood,  and  the  mo- 
ment he  entered  he  saw  that  something  had  happened,  that 
she  was  no  longer  the  same  Evelyn  from  whom  he  had 
parted  a  couple  of  nights  before. 

"  Well,  I  can  see  you  have  changed  your  mind ;  so  wo 
are  not  going  away  together.  Evelyn,  dear,  is  it  not  so? 
Tell  me." 

He  was  a  little  ashamed  of  his  hypocrisy,  for,  as  he  had 
driven  home  in  the  dogcart,  the  adventure  he  was  eng;ip-d 
in  had  appeared  to  him  under  every  disagreeable  asj>c<-t. 
He  could  not  but  think  that  the  truth  of  the  story  would 
leak  out,  and  he  could  hear  all  the  women  he  knew  speaking 
of  Evelyn  as  a  girl  he  had  picked  up  in  the  suburbs — an 
organist's  daughter.  He  had  thought  again  of  the  respon- 
sibility that  going  away  with  this  girl  imposed  upon  him, 
and  he  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  would  be  wiser 
to  drop  the  whole  thing  and  get  out  of  it  while  there  was 
time.  That  night,  as  he  lay  in  bed,  he  saw  himself  telling 
people  how  many  operas  she  knew ;  and  the  tales  of  her  suc- 
cesses  in  Vienna  and  Naples.  .  .  .  But  he  need  not  al- 
ways be  with  her,  she  would  have  a  chaperon;  and  he  h:id 


EVELYN  INNES.  77 

fallen  asleep  thinking  which  among  his  friends  would 
undertake  the  task  for  him.  In  the  morning  he  had 
awakened  in  the  same  nervous  indecision,  and  had  gone  to 
Dulwich  disheartened,  provoked  at  his  own  folly.  It  there- 
fore happened  that  her  refusal  to  go  away  with  him  coin- 
cided exactly  with  his  humour.  So  all  that  was  necessary 
was  a  mere  polite  attempt  to  persuade  her  that  she  was 
sacrificing  her  career,  but  without  too  much  insistence  on 
the  point;  a  promise  to  call  again  soon;  then  a  letter  say- 
ing he  was  unwell,  or  was  going  to  Paris  or  to  Riversdale. 
A  month  after  they  could  meet  at  a  concert,  but  he  must  be 
careful  not  to  be  alone  with  her,  and  very  soon  the  incident 
— after  all,  he  had  only  kissed  her — would  be  forgotten. 
But  as  he  sat  face  to  face  with  her,  all  his  carefully  consid- 
ered plans  seemed  to  drop  behind  him  in  ruins,  and  he 
doubted  if  he  would  be  able  to  deny  himself  the  pleasure 
of  taking  her  away.  That  is  to  say,  if  he  could  induce  her 
to  go,  which  no  longer  seemed  very  sure.  She  might  be 
one  of  those  women  in  whom  the  sense  of  sin  was  so  ob- 
durate that  they  could  not  but  remain  virtuous. 

But  of  what  was  she  thinking?  he  asked  himself;  and 
he  scanned  the  yielding  face,  reading  the  struggle  in  a  sud- 
den suppressed  look  or  nervous  twitching  of  the  lips. 

"  Dearest  Evelyn,  I  love  you.  Life  would  be  nothing 
without  you." 

"  Owen,  I  am  very  fond  of  you,  but  there  would  be  no 
use  in  my  going  away  with  you.  I  should  be  miserable. 
I  know  I  am  not  the  kind  of  woman  who  would  play  the 
part." 

Her  words  roused  new  doubts.  It  would  be  useless  to 
go  away  with  her  if  she  were  to  be  miserable  all  the  while. 
He  did  not  want  to  make  anyone  miserable;  he  wanted  to 
make  people  happy.  He  indulged  in  a  moment  of  com- 
placent self-admiration,  and  then  reflected  that  this  ad- 
venture would  cost  a  great  deal  of  time  and  money,  and  if 
he  were  really  to  get  nothing  out  of  it  but  tears  and  repent- 
ance, he  had  better  take  her  at  her  word,  bid  her  good-bye, 
and  write  to-morrow  saying  he  was  called  away  to  Kivers- 
dale  on  business. 

"  But  you  are  not  cross  with  me?  You  will  come  to  see 
me  all  the  same  ?  " 

He  wondered  if  she  were  tortured  with  as  many  dif- 


f  8  EVELYN  INNES. 

ferent  and  opposing  desires  as  he  was.  Perhaps  not,  and 
he  watched  her  tender,  truthful  eyes.  In  her  truthful  na- 
ture, filled  full  of  passion  and  conscience,  there  was  no 
place  for  any  slightest  calculation.  But  he  was  mistrust- 
ful, and  asked  himself  if  all  this  resistance  was  a  blind  to 
induce  him  to  marry  her.  If  he  thought  that,  he  would 
drop  her  at  once.  This  suspicion  was  lost  sight  of  in  a  sud- 
den lighting  of  her  hair,  caused  by  a  slight  turning  of  her 
head.  Beyond  doubt  she  was  a  fresh  and  delicious  thing, 
and  if  he  did  not  take  her,  someone  else  would,  and  then  he 
would  curse  his  indecision;  and  if  she  had  a  great  voice, 
he  would  for  ever  regret  he  had  not  taken  her  when  he 
could  get  her.  If  he  did  not  take  her  now,  the  chance  was 
gone  for  ever.  She  was  the  adventure  he  had  dreamed  all 
his  life.  At  last  it  had  come  to  him,  perhaps  through  the 
sheer  force  of  his  desire,  and  now,  should  he  refrain  from 
the  dream,  or  should  he  dream  it?  He  saw  the  exquisite, 
'sensual  life  that  awaited  him  and  her  in  Paris.  He  saw 
her,  pale  and  pathetic,  and  thought  of  her  eager  eyes  and 
lips. 

Evelyn  sat  crestfallen  and  repentant,  but  her  melancholy 
was  a  pretty,  smiling  melancholy,  and  her  voice  had  not 
quite  lost  the  sparkle  and  savour  of  wit.  She  regretted  her 
sin,  admitted  her  culpability,  and  he  was  forced  to  admit 
that  sorrow  and  virtue  sat  becomingly  upon  her.  Her 
mood  was  in  a  measure  contagious,  and  he  talked  gently 
and  gaily  about  herself,  and  the  day  when  the  world  would 
listen  to  her  with  delight  and  approbation.  But  while  he 
talked,  he  was  like  a  man  on  the  rack.  He  was  dragged 
from  different  sides,  and  the  questioner  was  at  his  ear. 

Hitherto  he  had  never  compromised  himself  in  his 
relations  with  women.  As  he  had  often  said  of  himself, 
he  had  inspired  no  great  passion,  but  a  multitude  of  ca- 
prices. But  now  he  had  begun  to  feel  that  it  is  one  love 
and  not  twenty  that  makes  a  life  memorable,  he  wished  to 
redeem  his  life  from  intrigues,  and  here  was  the  very 
chance  he  was  waiting  for.  But  habit  had  rendered  him 
cowardly,  and  this  affair  frightened  him  almost  as  nnicU 
as  marriage  had  done.  To  go  away  with  her,  he  felt,  was 
equivalent  to  marrying  her.  His  life  would  never  be  the 
same  ngain.  The  list  would  be  lost  to  him  for  ever,  no 
more  lists  for  him.  He  would  be  known  as  the  man  who 


EVELYN  INNES.  Y9 

lived  with — lived  with  whom?  A  girl  picked  up  in  the 
suburbs,  and  who  sang  rather  prettily.  If  she  were  a  great 
singer  he  would  not  mind,  but  he  could  not  stand  a  medio- 
cre singer  about  whom  he  would  have  to  talk  continual 
nonsense:  conspiracies  that  were  in  continual  progress 
against  her  at  Covent  Garden,  etc.  He  had  heard  all  that 
sort  of  thing  before.  .  .  .  What  should  he  do  ?  He  must 
make  up  his  mind.  It  might  be  as  well  if  he  were  to  ask 
her  to  come  to  his  house;  then  in  some  three  or  four 
months  he  would  be  able  to  see  if  she  were  worth  the  great 
sacrifice  he  was  going  to  make  for  her. 

Her  hand  lay  on  her  knees.  He  knew  that  he  should  not 
take  it,  but  it  lay  on  her  knee  so  plaintively,  that  in  spite 
of  all  his  resistance  he  took  it  and  examined  it.  It  did  not 
strike  him  as  a  particularly  beautiful  hand.  It  was  long 
and  white,  and  exceedingly  flexible.  It  was  large,  and  the 
finger-tips  were  pointed.  The  palms  curved  voluptuously, 
but  the  slender  fingers  closed  and  opened  with  a  virile 
movement  which  suggested  active  and  spontaneous  im- 
pulses. In  taking  her  hand  and  caressing  it,  he  knew  he  was 
prejudicing  his  chances  of  escape,  and  fearing  the  hand  he 
held  in  his  might  never  let  him  go  again,  he  said — 

"  If  your  destiny  should  be  to  play  the  viola  da  gamba 
in  Dulwich,  and  mine  to  set  forth  again  on  my  trip  round 
the  world." 

In  an  instant,  in  a  rapid  succession  of  scenes,  the  horri- 
ble winter  she  had  spent  in  Dulwich  passed  before  her  eyes. 
She  saw  herself  stopping  at  the  corner  of  a  street,  and  look- 
ing at  a  certain  tree  and  the  slope  of  a  certain  house,  and 
asking  herself  if  her  life  would  go  on  for  ever,  if  there  would 
be  no  change.  She  saw  herself  star  gazing,  with  daffodils 
for  offering  in  her  hands;  and  the  memory  of  the  hungry 
hours  when  she  waited  for  her  father  to  come  home  to  din- 
ner was  so  vivid,  that  she  thought  she  felt  the  same  weary- 
ing pain  and  the  exhausted  yearning  behind  her  eyes,  and 
that  feeling  as  if  she  wanted  to  go  mad.  No;  she  could 
not  endure  it  again,  and  she  cried  plaintively,  falling 
slightly  forward — 

"  Owen,  don't  make  things  more  difficult  than  they  are. 
Why  is  it  wrong  for  me  to  go  away  with  you?  I  don't  do 
any  harm  to  anyone.  God  is  merciful  after  all." 

"  If  I  were  to  marry  you,  you  could  not  go  on  the  stage ; 
6 


80  EVELYN  INNES. 

you  would  have  to  live  at  Riversdale  and  look  after  your 
children." 

"  But  I  don't  want  children.  I  want  to  sing.  It  would 
be  much  more  exciting  to  run  away  together,  than  to  be 
married  by  the  Vicar.  It  is  very  wicked  to  say  these  things. 
It  is  you  who  make  me  wicked." 

A  mist  blinded  her  eyes,  and  a  sickness  seemed  instilled 
in  her  very  blood,  and  in  a  dubious  faintness  she  was  con- 
scious of  his  lips.  He  hardly  heard  the  words  he  uttered, 
so  loud  was  the  clatter  of  his  thoughts,  and  he  seemed  to 
see  the  trail  of  his  destiny  unwinding  itself  from  the  distaff 
in  the  hands  of  Fate.  He  was  frightened,  and  an  impulse 
strove  to  force  him  to  his  feet,  and  hence,  with  a  rapid 
good-bye,  to  the  door.  But  instead,  he  leaned  forth  his 
hands,  he  sought  her,  but  she  shrank  away,  and  turning  her 
face  from  him,  she  said —  » 

"  Owen,  you  must  not  kiss  me." 

Again  he  might  choose  between  sailing  the  Medusa  in 
search  of  adventure,  or  crossing  the  Channel  in  the  mail 
packet  in  search  of  art. 

"  Will  you  come  away  with  me  ? "  he  said.  His  heart 
sank,  and  he  thought  of  the  Rubicon. 

"  You  don't  mean  this  very  instant  ?  I  could  not  go 
away  without  seeing  father." 

"  Why  not  ?  You  don't  intend  to  tell  him  you  are  go- 
ing away  with  me  ?  " 

"  No ;  it  is  not  the  sort  of  thing  one  generally  tells  one's 
father,  but — I  cannot  go  away  with  you  now — 

"  When  will  you  come  ?  " 

"  Owen,  don't  press  me  for  an  answer.     I  don't  know." 

"  The  way  of  escape  is  still  open  to  me,"  he  thought ; 
but  he  could  not  resist  the  temptation  that  this  girl's  face 
and  voice  presented  to  his  imagination. 


IX. 

SHE  sat  in  the  music  room  thinking,  asking  herself  what 
use  it  would  be  to  meet  him  in  Berkeley  Square  unless  to 
go  away  with  him  to  Paris.  She  sat  engrossed  in  her  emo- 


EVELYN  INNES.  81 

tion;  it  was  like  looking  into  water  where  weeds  are  car- 
ried by  a  current  out  of  the  dim  depths  into  the  light  of  day. 
In  a  pensive  atmosphere,  a  quiet  daylight,  his  motives  were 
revealed  to  her.  She  was  in  the  humour  to  look  at  things 
sympathetically,  and  she  understood  that  for  him  to  run 
away  with  her  entailed  as  much  sacrifice  on  his  part  as  on 
hers.  It  meant  a  giving  up  of  his  friends,  pursuits  and 
habits  of  life.  There  were  sacrifices  to  be  made  by  him  as 
well  as  by  her,  and  she  smiled  a  little  sadly  as  she  thought 
of  the  differences  of  their  several  renunciations.  She  was 
asked  to  surrender  her  peace  of  mind,  he  his  worldly  pleas- 
ure. Often  the  sensation  was  almost  physical;  it  rose  up 
like  a  hand  and  seemed  to  sweep  her  heart  clear,  and  at 
the  same  moment  a  voice  said — It  is  not  right.  Owen  had 
argued  with  her,  but  she  could  not  quench  the  feeling  that 
it  was  not  right,  and  yet",  when  he  asked  her  to  explain,  she 
could  give  no  other  reason  except  that  it  was  forbidden  by 
the  Church. 

Each  thought  that  very  little  was  asked  from  the  other. 
To  him  her  conscience  seemed  a  slight  forfeit,  and  worldly 
pleasure  seemed  very  little  to  her.  She  thought  that  she 
would  easily  forfeit  this  world  for  him.  .  .  .  But  eternity 
was  her  forfeit;  even  that  she  might  sacrifice  if  she  were 
sure  her  conscience  would  not  trouble  her  in  this  world. 
She  followed  her  conscience  like  a  river;  it  fluttered  along 
full  of  unexpected  eddies  and  picturesque  shallows,  and 
there  were  pools  so  deep  that  she  could  not  see  to  the  bot- 
tom. 

Suddenly  the  vision  changed.  She  was  no  longer  in 
Dulwich  with  her  father.  She  saw  railway  trains  and 
steamboats,  and  then  the  faint  outline  of  the  coast  of 
France.  Her  foreboding  was  so  clear  and  distinct  that  she 
could  not  doubt  that  Owen  was  the  future  that  awaited  her. 
The  presentiment  filled  her  with  delight  and  fear,  and  both 
sensations  were  mingled  at  the  same  moment  in  her  heart 
as  she  rose  from  her  chair.  She  stood  rigid  as  a  visionary ; 
then,  hoping  she  would  not  be  disturbed,  she  sank  back  into 
her  chair  and  allowed  her  thoughts  their  will.  She  fol- 
lowed the  course  of  the  journey  to  France,  and  at  every  mo- 
ment the  sensation  grew  more  exquisite.  She  heard  him 
say  what  she  wished  him  to  say,  and  she  saw  the  white  villa 
in  its  garden  planted  with  rhododendrons  and  chestnut 


82  EVELYN  INNES. 

trees  in  flower.  The  mild  spring  air,  faint  with  perfume, 
dilated  her  nostrils,  and  her  eyes  drank  in  the  soft  colour 
of  the  light  shadows  passing  over  the  delicate  grass,  and 
the  light  shadows  moving  among  the  trees.  She  lay  back 
in  her  chair,  her  eyes  fixed  on  a  distant  corner  of  the  room, 
and  her  life  went  by,  clear  and  surprising  as  pictures  seen 
in  a  crystal.  When  she  grew  weary  of  the  villa,  she  saw 
herself  on  the  stage,  and  heard  her  own  voice  singing  as  she 
wished  to  sing.  Nor  did  she  foresee  any  break  in  the  lull- 
ing enchantment  of  her  life  of  music  and  love.  She  knew 
that  Owen  did  not  love  her  at  present,  but  she  never  doubt- 
ed that  she  could  get  him  to  love  her,  and  once  he  loved  her 
it  seemed  to  her  that  he  must  always  love  her.  What  she 
had  heard  and  read  in  books  concerning  the  treachery  of 
men,  she  remembered,  but  she  was  not  influenced,  for  it 
did  not  seem  to  her  that  any  such  things  were  to  happen  to 
her.  She  closed  her  eyes  so  that  she  might  drink  more 
deeply  of  the  vision,  so  that  she  might  bring  it  more  clearly 
before  her.  Like  aspects  seen  on  a  misty  river,  it  was  as 
beautiful  shadows  of  things  rather  than  the  things  them- 
selves. The  meditation  grew  voluptuous,  and  as  she  saw 
him  take  her  in  his  arms,  her  conscience  warned  her  that 
she  should  cease  to  indulge  in  these  thoughts;  but  it  was 
impossible  to  check  them,  and  she  dreamed  on  and  on  in 
kisses  and  tendernesses  of  speech. 

That  afternoon  she  was  going  to  have  tea  with  some 
friends,  and  as  she  paused  to  pin  her  hat  before  the  glass, 
she  remembered  that  if  Owen  were  right,  and  that  there 
was  no  future  life,  the  only  life  that  she  was  sure  of 
would  be  wasted.  Then  she  would  endure  the  burden  of 
life  for  naught;  she  would  not  have  attained  its  recom- 
pense ;  the  calamity  would  be  irreparable ;  it  would  be  just 
as  if  she  had  not  lived  at  all.  Thought  succeeded  thought 
in  instantaneous  succession,  contradicting  and  refuting 
each  other.  No,  her  life  would  not  be  wasted,  it  would  l><? 
an  example  to  others,  it  was  in  renunciation  that  we  rose 
above  the  animal  and  attained  spiritual  existence.  At  that 
moment  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  could  renounce  every- 
thing but  love.  Could  she  renounce  her  art?  But  her  art 
was  not  a  merely  personal  sacrifice.  In  the  renunciation 
of  her  art  she  was  denying  a  great  gift  that  had  been  given 
to  her  by  Nature,  that  had  come  she  knew  not  whence  nor 


EVELYN  INNES.  83 

how,  but  clearly  for  exercise  and  for  the  admiration  of  the 
world.  It  therefore  could  not  have  been  given  to  her  to 
hide  or  to  waste;  she  would  be  held  responsible  for  it.  Her 
voice  was  one  of  her  responsibilities;  not  to  cultivate  her 
voice  would  be  a  sort  of  suicide.  This  seemed  quite  clear 
to  her,  and  she  reflected,  and  with  some  personal  satisfac- 
tion, that  she  had  incurred  duties  toward  herself.  Eight 
and  wrong,  as  Owen  said,  was  a  question  of  time  and  place. 
What  was  right  here  was  wrong  there,  but  oneself  was  the 
one  certain  thing,  and  to  remain  with  her  father  meant  the 
abandonment  of  herself.  .  .  .  She  wanted  herself!  Ah, 
she  wanted  to  live,  and  how  well  she  knew  that  she  was  not 
living,  and  could  never  live,  in  Dulwich.  The  nuns! 
Strange  were  their  renunciations!  For  they  yielded  the 
present  moment,  which  Owen  and  a  Persian  poet  called  our 
one  possession.  She  seemed  to  see  them  fading  in  a  pa- 
thetic decadence,  falling  like  etiolated  flowers,  and  their 
holy  simplicities  seemed  merely  pathetic. 

And  in  the  exaltation  of  her  resolution  to  live,  her  soul 
melted  again  into  Owen's  kisses,  and  she  drew  herself  to- 
gether, and  the  spasm  was  so  intense  and  penetrating  that 
to  overcome  it  she  walked  across  the  room  stretching  her 
arms.  It  seemed  to  her  more  than  impossible  that  she 
could  endure  Dulwich  any  longer.  The  life  of  love  and  art 
tore  at  her  heart;  always  she  saw  Owen  offering  her  love, 
fame,  wealth;  his  hands  were  full  of  gifts;  he  seemed  to 
drop  them  at  her  feet,  and  taking  her  in  his  arms,  his  lips 
closed  upon  hers,  and  her  life  seemed  to  run  down  like  the 
last  struggling  sand  in  a  glass. 

Besides  this  personal  desire  there  was  in  her  brain  a 
strange  alienation.  Paris  rose  up  before  her,  and  Italy, 
and  they  were  so  vague  that  she  hardly  knew  whether  they 
were  remembrances  or  dreams,  and  she  was  compelled  by  a 
force  so  exterior  to  herself  that  she  looked  round  fright- 
ened, as  if  she  believed  she  would  find  someone  at  her  elbow. 
She  did  not  seem  to  be  alone,  there  seemed  to  be  others  in 
the  room,  presences  from  which  she  could  not  escape;  she 
could  not  see  them,  but  she  felt  them  about  her,  and  as  she 
sought  them  with  fearing  eyes,  voices  seemed  speaking  in- 
side her,  and  it  was  with  extreme  terror  that  she  heard  the 
proposal  that  she  was  to  be  one  of  God's  virgins.  The  hell 
which  opened  on  the  other  side  of  Owen  ceased  to  frighten 


84:  EVELYN  INNES. 

her.  The  devils  waiting  there  for  her  soul  grew  less  sub- 
stantial, and  thoughts  and  things  seemed  to  converge  more 
and  more,  to  draw  together  and  become  one.  She  was 
aware  of  the  hallucination  in  her  brain,  but  could  not  re- 
press it,  nor  all  sorts  of  rapid  questions  and  arguments. 
Suddenly  a  voice  reminded  her  that  if  she  were  going  to 
abandon  the  life  of  the  soul  for  the  life  of  the  flesh,  that  she 
should  accept  the  flesh  wholly,  and  not  subvert  its  inten- 
tions. She  should  become  the  mother  of  children.  Life 
was  concerned  more  intimately  with  children  than  with  her 
art.  But  somehow  it  did  not  seem  the  same  renunciation, 
and  she  stood  perplexed  before  the  enigma  of  her  con- 
science. 

She  looked  round  the  room,  dreading  and  half  believing 
in  some  diabolic  influence  at  her  elbow,  but  perceiving 
nothing,  an  ungovernable  impulse  took  her,  and  her  steps 
strayed  to  the  door,  in  the  desire  and  almost  in  the  inten- 
tion of  going  to  London.  But  if  she  went  there,  how  would 
she  explain  her  visit?  .  .  .  Owen  would  understand;  but 
if  he  were  not  in,  she  could  not  wait  until  he  came  in. 
She  paused  to  consider  the  look  of  pleasure  that  would 
come  upon  his  face  when  he  came  in  and  found  her  there. 
There  would  be  just  one  look,  and  they  would  throw  them- 
selves into  each  other's  arms.  She  was  about  to  rush  away, 
having  forgotten  all  else  but  him,  when  she  remembered 
her  father.  If  she  were  to  go  now  she  must  leave  a  letter  for 
him  explaining — telling  him  the  story.  And  who  would 
play  the  viola  da  gamba  at  his  concerts?  and  there  would 
be  no  one  to  see  that  he  had  his  meals. 

Was  she  or  was  she  not  going  away  with  Owen  to  Paris 
on  Thursday  night?  The  agonising  question  continued  at 
every  moment  to  present  itself.  Whatever  she  was  doing 
or  saying,  she  was  always  conscious  of  it,  and  as  the  time 
drew  near,  with  every  hour,  it  seemed  to  approach  and 
menace  her.  She  seemed  to  feel  it  beating  like  a  neuralgic 
pain  behind  her  eyes ;  and  though  she  laughed  and  talked  a 
great  deal,  her  father  noticed  that  her  animation  was 
strained  and  nervous,  and  he  noticed,  too,  that  in  no  part 
of  their  conversation  was  she  ever  entirely  with  him,  and 
he  wondered  what  were  the  sights  and  scenes  he  faintly  dis- 
cerned in  her  ehaiiiriiii*  <'.ves. 

On  getting  up  on  Wednesday  morning,  she  remembered 


EVELYN  INNES.  85 

that  the  best  train  from  Dulwich  was  at  three  o'clock,  and 
she  asked  herself  why  she  had  thought  of  this  train,  and 
that  she  should  have  thought  of  it  seemed  to  her  like  an 
omen.  Her  father  sat  opposite,  looking  at  her  across  the 
table.  It  was  all  so  clear  in  her  mind  that  she  was  ashamed 
to  sit  thinking  these  things,  for  thinking  as  clearly  as  she 
was  thinking  seemed  equivalent  to  accomplishment;  and 
the  differences  between  what  she  thought  and  what  she  said 
was  so  repulsive  to  her  that  she  was  on  the  point  of  flinging 
herself  at  his  feet  several  times. 

There  were  times  when  the  temptation  seemed  to  have 
left  her,  when  she  smiled  at  her  own  weakness  and  folly; 
and  having  reproved  herself  sufficiently,  she  thought  of 
other  things.  It  seemed  to  her  extraordinary  why  she 
should  argue  and  trouble  about  a  thing  which  she  really 
had  no  intention  of  doing.  But  at  that  moment  her  heart 
told  her  that  this  was  not  so,  that  she  would  go  to  meet 
Owen  in  Berkeley  Square,  and  she  was  again  taken  with 
an  extraordinary  inward  trembling. 

Our  actions  obey  an  unknown  law,  implicit  in  ourselves, 
but  which  does  not  conform  to  our  logic.  So  we  very  often 
succeed  in  proving  to  ourselves  that  a  certain  course  is  the 
proper  one  for  us  to  follow,  in  preference  to  another  course, 
but,  when  it  comes  for  us  to  act,  we  do  not  act  as  we  intend- 
ed, and  we  ascribe  the  discrepancy  between  what  we  think 
and  what  we  do  to  a  deficiency  of  will  power.  Man  dares 
not  admit  that  he  acts  according  to  his  instincts,  that  his 
instincts  are  his  destiny. 

We  make  up  our  mind  to  change  our  conduct  in  certain 
matters,  but  we  go  on  acting  just  the  same;  and  in  spite  of 
every  reason,  Evelyn  was  still  undecided  whether  she  should 
go  to  meet  Sir  Owen.  It  was  quite  clear  that  it  was  wrong 
for  her  to  go,  and  it  seemed  all  settled  in  her  mind;  but 
at  the  bottom  of  her  heart  something  over  which  she  had 
no  kind  of  control  told  her  that  in  the  end  nothing  could 
prevent  her  from  going  to  meet  him.  She  stopped,  amazed 
and  terrified,  asking  herself  why  she  was  going  to  do  a 
thing  which  she  seemed  no  longer  even  to  desire. 

In  the  afternoon  some  girl  friends  came  to  see  her.  She 
played  and  sang  and  talked  to  them,  but  they,  too,  noticed 
that  she  was  never  really  with  them,  and  her  friends  could 
see  that  she  saw  and  heard  things  invisible  and  inaudible  to 


86  EVELYN  INNES. 

them.  In  the  middle  of  some  trifling  chatter — whether 
one  colour  or  another  was  likely  to  be  fashionable  in  the 
coming  season — she  had  to  put  her  hand  in  her  pocket  for 
her  handkerchief,  and  happened  to  meet  the  key  of  the 
square,  and  it  brought  back  to  her  in  a  moment  the  entire 
drama  of  her  destiny.  Was  she  going  to  take  the  three 
o'clock  train  to  London,  or  to  remain  in  Dulwich  with  her 
father?  She  thought  that  she  would  not  mind  whatever 
happened,  if  she  only  knew  what  would  happen.  Either  lot 
seemed  better  to  her  than  the  uncertainty.  She  rattled  on, 
talking  with  fictitious  gaiety  about  the  colour  of  bonnets 
and  a  party  at  which  Julia  had  sung,  not  even  hearing  what 
she  was  saying.  Wednesday  evening  passed  with  an  in- 
ward vision  so  intense  that  all  the  outer  world  had  receded 
from  her,  she  was  like  one  alone  in  a  desert,  and  she  ate 
without  tasting,  saw  without  seeing  what  she  looked  at, 
spoke  without  knowing  what  she  was  saying,  heard  with- 
out hearing  what  was  said  to  her,  and  moved  without  know- 
ing where  she  was  going. 

On  Thursday  morning  the  obsession  of  her  destiny  took 
all  colour  from  her  cheek,  and  her  eyes  were  nervous. 

"  What  is  it,  my  girl  ?  "  her  father  said,  taking  her  hand, 
and  the  music  he  was  tying  up  dropped  on  the  floor.  "  Tell 
me,  Evelyn;  something,  I  can  see,  is  the  matter." 

It  was  like  the  breaking  of  a  spring.  Something  seemed 
to  give  way  within  her,  and  slipping  on  her  knees,  she  threw 
her  arms  about  him. 

"  I  am  very  unhappy.     I  wish  I  were  dead." 

He  strove  to  raise  her  from  her  knees,  but  the  attitude 
expressed  her  feelings,  and  she  remained,  leaning  her  face 
against  him.  Nor  could  he  coax  any  information  from 
her.  At  last  she  said,  raising  her  tearful  eyes — 

"If  I  were  to  leave  you,  father,  you  would  never  for- 
give me!  But  I  am  your  only  daughter,  and  you  would 
forgive  me;  whatever  happened,  we  should  always  love  one 
another?" 

"  But  why  should  you  leave  me  ?  " 

"  But  if  I  love  someone  ?  I  don't  mean  as  I  love  you. 
I  could  never  love  anyone  so  tenderly;  I  mean  quite  differ- 
ently. Don't  make  me  say  any  more.  I  am  so  ashamed  of 
myself." 

"You  are  in  love  with  him?" 


EVELYN  INNES.  87 

"  Yes,  and  he  has  asked  me  to  go  away  with  him."  And 
as  she  answered,  she  wondered  at  the  quickness  with  which 
her  father  had  guessed  that  it  was  Owen.  He  was  such  a 
clever  man;  the  moment  his  thoughts  were  diverted  from 
his  music,  he  understood  things  as  well  as  the  most  worldly, 
and  she  felt  that  he  would  understand  her,  that  she  must 
open  her  heart  to  him. 

"  If  I  don't  go  away  with  him  I  shall  die,  or  kill  myself, 
or  go  mad.  It  is  terrible  to  have  to  tell  you  these  things, 
father,  I  know,  but  I  must.  I  was  ill  when  he  went  away  to 
Greece,  you  remember.  It  was  nothing  but  love  of  him." 

"  Did  he  not  ask  you  to  marry  him  ?  " 

"  No,  he  will  never  marry  anyone." 

"  And  that  made  no  difference  to  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  father,  don't  be  angry,  don't  think  me  horrid. 
You  are  looking  at  me  as  if  you  never  saw  me  before.  I 
know  I  ought  to  have  been  angry  when  he  asked  me  to 
go  away  with  him,  but  somehow  I  wasn't.  I  don't  know 
that  I  even  wanted  him  to  marry  me.  I  want  to  go  away 
and  be  a  great  singer,  and  he  is  not  more  to  blame  than  I 
am.  I  can't  tell  lies.  What  is  the  use  of  telling  lies?  If 
I  were  to  tell  you  anything  else,  it  would  be  untrue." 

"  But  are  you  going  away  with  him  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  Not  if  I  can  help  it ;  "  and  at  that  mo- 
ment her  eyes  went  to  the  portrait  of  her  mother. 

"  You  lost  your  mother  very  early,  and  I  have  neglected 
you.  She  ought  to  be  here  to  protect  you." 

"  No,  no,  father ;  she  would  not  understand  me  as  well 
as  you  do." 

"  So  you  are  glad  that  she  is  not  here  ?  " 

Evelyn  nodded,  and  then  she  said 

"  If  he  were  to  go  away  and  I  were  left  here  again,  I 
don't  know  what  would  become  of  me.  It  isn't  my  fault, 
father;  I  can't  help  it." 

"  I  did  not  know  that  you  were  like  this.  Your 
mother — 

"  Ah !  mother  and  I  are  quite  different.  I  am  more  like 
you,  father.  You  can't  blame  me;  you  have  been  in  love 
with  women — with  mother,  at  least — and  ought  to  under- 
stand." 

"  Evelyn  .  .  .  these  are  subjects  that  cannot  be  dis- 
cussed between  us." 


88  EVELYN  IXNES. 

The  eyes  of  the  mother  watched  them,  and  there  was 
something  in  her  cold,  distant  glance  which  went  to  their 
hearts,  but  they  could  not  interpret  its  meaning. 

"  I  either  had  to  go  away;  father,  telling  you  nothing,  or 
I  had  to  tell  you  everything." 

"  I  will  go  to  Sir  Owen." 

"  No,  father,  you  mustn't.  Promise  me  you  won't.  I 
have  trusted  you,  and  you  mustn't  make  me  regret  my  trust. 
This  is  my  secret."  He  was  frightened  by  the  strange  light 
that  appeared  in  her  eyes,  and  he  felt  that  an  appeal 
to  Owen  would  be  like  throwing  oil  on  a  flame.  "  You 
mustn't  go  to  Sir  Owen;  you  have  promised  you  won't.  I 
don't  know  what  would  happen  if  you  did." 

His  daughter's  confession  had  frightened  him,  and  he 
knew  not  what  answer  to  make  to  her.  When  the  depths 
find  voice  we  stand  aghast,  knowing  neither  ourselves  nor 
those  whom  we  have  lived  with  always.  He  was  caught 
in  the  very  den  of  his  being,  and  seemed  at  every  moment 
to  be  turning  over  a  leaf  of  his  past  life. 

"  If  you  had  only  patience,  Evelyn — ah !  you  have1 
heard  what  I  am  going  to  say  so  often,  but  I  don't  blame 
your  incredulity.  That  was  why  I  did  not  tell  you  be- 
fore." 

"  What  has  happened  ? "  she  asked  eagerly ;  for  she,  too, 
wished  for  a  lull  in  this  stress  of  emotion. 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  Monsignor  Mostyn,  the  great  Roman 
prelate,  who  has  just  arrived  from  Rome,  and  is  staying 
with  the  Jesuits,  shares  all  my  views  regarding  the  neces- 
sity of  a  musical  reformation.  He  believes  that  a  revival 
of  Palestrina  and  Vittoria  would  be  of  great  use  to  the 
Catholic  cause  in  England.  He  says  that  he  can  secure 
the  special  intervention  of  the  Pope,  and,  what  is  much 
more  important,  he  will  subscribe  largely,  and  has  no 
doubt  that  sufficient  money  can  be  collected." 

Evelyn  listened,  smiling  through  her  sorrow,  like  a  bird 
when  the  rain  has  ceased  for  a  moment,  and  she  asked 
questions,  anxious  to  delay  the  inevitable  return  to  her  own 
unhappy  condition.  She  was  interested  in  the  luck  that 
had  come  to  her  father,  and  was  sorry  that  her  conduct  had 
clouded  or  spoilt  it.  At  last  a  feeling  of  shame  came  upon 
them  that  at  such  a  time  they  should  be  engaged  in  speak- 
ing of  such  singularly  irrelevant  topics.  She  could  see 


EVELYN  INNES.  89 

that  the  same  thought  had  come  upon  him,  and  she  noticed 
his  trim,  square  figure,  and  the  old  blue  jacket  which  she 
had  known  so  many  years,  as  he  walked  up  and  down  the 
room.  He  was  getting  very  grey  lately,  and  when  she  re- 
turned he  might  be  quite  white. 

"  Oh,  father,  father,"  she  exclaimed,  covering  her  face 
with  her  hands,  "  how  unhappy  I  am !  " 

"  I  shall  send  a  telegram  to  Monsignor  saying  I  can't 
see  him  this  morning." 

"  Ah !  you  have  to  see  him  this  morning ; "  and  she  did 
not  know  whether  she  was  glad  or  sorry.  Perhaps  she  was 
more  frightened  than  either,  for  the  appointment  left  her 
quite  free  to  go  to  London  by  the  three  o'clock  train. 

"  I  can't  leave  you  alone." 

"  Darling,  if  I  had  wanted  to  deceive  you,  I  should  have 
told  you  nothing;  and,  however  you  were  to  watch  me,  I 
could  always  get  away  if  I  chose." 

She  was  right,  he  could  not  keep  her  by  force,  he  could 
do  nothing;  shame  prevented  him  from  appealing  to  her 
affection  for  him,  for  it  was  in  his  interest  she  should  stay. 
After  all,  Sir  Owen  will  make  a  great  singer  of  her.  The 
thought  had  come  and  gone  before  he  was  aware,  and  to 
atone  for  this  involuntary  thought  he  spoke  to  her  about 
her  religion. 

"  I  used  to  be  religious,"  she  said,  "  but  I  am  religious 
no  longer.  I  can  hardly  say  my  prayers  now.  I  said  them 
last  night,  but  this  morning  I  couldn't." 

He  passed  his  hand  across  his  eyes,  and  said — 

"  It  seems  all  like  a  bad  dream." 

He  felt  that  he  ought  to  stay  with  her,  and  at  the  same 
time  he  felt  that  she  was  right ;  that  his  intervention  would 
be  unavailing,  for  the  struggle  resided  in  herself.  But  if 
she  should  learn  from  Sir  Owen  to  forget  him;  if  he  were 
to  lose  her  altogether;  if  she  should  never  return?  The 
thought  of  such  a  calamity  was  the  rudest  blow  of  all,  and 
the  possibility  of  her  going  away  for  a  time,  shocking  as  it 
was,  seemed  almost  light  beside  it.  He  struggled  against 
these  thoughts,  for  he  hated  and  was  ashamed  of  them. 
They  came  into  his  mind  unasked,  and  he  hoped  that  they 
represented  nothing  of  his  real  feeling.  Suddenly  his  face 
changed,  he  remembered  his  passion  for  her  mother.  He 
had  suffered  what  Evelyn  was  suffering  now.  She  had 


90  EVELYN  INNES. 

divined  it  by  some  instinct ;  true,  they  were  very  much  like 
each  other.  Nothing  would  have  kept  him  from  Gertrude. 
But  all  that  was  so  long  ago.  Good  God!  It  was  not  the 
same  thing,  and  at  the  very  same  moment  he  regretted 
that  it  was  not  a  music  lesson  he  was  going  to,  for  an  ap- 
pointment with  Monsignor  introduced  a  personal  interest, 
and  if  he  were  not  to  stay  by  her,  it  would  seem  that  he  was 
indifferent  to  what  became  of  her. 

"  No,  Evelyn,  I  sha'n't  go ;  I  will  stay  here,  I  will  stay 
by  you." 

"  But  I  don't  know  that  I  am  going  away  with  Sir 
Owen." 

"  You  said  just  now  that  you  were." 

"  Did  I  say  so  ?  Father,  you  must  keep  your  appoint- 
ment with  Monsignor,  and  you  must  say  nothing  to  Owen 
if  you  should  meet  him;  you  promise  me  that?  It  rests 
with  me,  father,  it  is  all  in  the  heart." 

He  stood  looking  at  her,  twisting  his  beard  into  a  point, 
and  while  she  wondered  whether  he  would  go  or  stay,  she 
admired  the  delicacy  of  his  hand. 

"  Think  of  the  disgrace  you  will  bring  upon  me,  and 
just  at  the  time,  too,  when  Monsignor  is  beginning  to  see 
that  a  really  great  choir  in  London " 

"  Then,  father,  you  do  think  that  my  going  away  will 
prejudice  him  against  you?  " 

"  I  don't  say  that.  I  mean  that  this  time  seems  less — 
Of  course  you  cannot  go.  It  is  very  shocking  that  we 
should  be  discussing  the  subject  together." 

A  sudden  fortitude  came  upon  her,  and  a  sudden  desire 
to  sacrifice  herself  to  her  father. 

"  Then,  father,  I  shall  stay.  I  will  do  nothing  that  will 
interfere  with  your  work." 

"  My  dearest  child,  it  is  not  for  me — it  is  yourself — 

She  threw  herself  into  his  arms,  begging  him  to  forgive 
In T.  She  wanted  to  stay  with  him.  She  loved  him  better 
than  her  voice,  better  than  anything  in  the  world.  He  did 
not  answer,  and  when  she  raised  her  eyes  she  caught  a 
slight  look  of  doubt  upon  his  face,  and  wondered  what  it 
could  mean.  At  the  very  moment  she  had  determined  to 
stay  with  him,  and  forfeit  her  love  and  her  art  for  his  sake, 
a  keen  sense  of  his  responsibility  towards  her  was  borne  in 
upon  him,  and  the  feeling  within  him  crushed  like  a  stone 


EVELYN  INNES.  91 

that  he  could  never  do  anything  for  her,  nor  anything  else 
except,  perchance,  achieve  that  reformation  of  Church  mu- 
sic upon  which  his  heart  was  set.  He  understood  in  that 
instant  that  she  was  sacrificing  all  her  life  to  his,  and  he 
feared  the  sacrifice  she  was  making,  and  anticipated  in 
some  measure  the  remorse  he  would  suffer.  But  he  dared 
not  think  that  she  had  better  go  and  achieve  her  destiny  in 
the  only  way  that  was  open  to  her.  He  urged  himself  to 
believe  that  she  was  acting  rightly,  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  hold  any  other  opinion.  The  thoughts  that  came 
upon  him  he  strove  to  think  were  merely  nervous  accidents, 
and  he  forced  himself  to  accept  the  irresponsibility  of  the 
sacrifice.  He  wished  not  to  be  selfish,  but,  however  he 
acted,  he  always  seemed  to  be  acting  in  his  own  interest. 
Since  she  had  promised  him  not  to  go  away  with  Sir 
Owen,  he  was  quite  free  to  keep  his  appointment  with 
Monsignor,  and  he  gathered  up  his  music,  and  then  he  let 
it  fall  again,  fearing  that  she  would  interpret  his  action  to 
mean  that  he  was  glad  to  get  away. 

She  besought  him  to  go;  she  said  she  was  tired  and 
wanted  to  lie  down,  and  all  the  while  he  spoke  she  was 
tortured  with  an  uncertainty  as  to  whether  she  was  speak- 
ing the  truth  or  not ;  and  he  had  not  been  gone  many  min- 
utes when  she  remembered  that  she  had  not  told  him  that 
Owen  had  asked  her  to  meet  him  that  very  afternoon  in 
Berkeley  Square,  and  that  the  key  of  the  square  lay  in  her 
pocket.  Like  one  with  outstretched  hands  striving  to  feel 
her  way  in  the  dark,  she  sought  to  discover  in  her  soul 
whether  she  had  deliberately  suppressed  or  accidentally 
omitted  the  fact  of  her  appointment  with  Owen.  It  might 
be  that  the  conversation  had  taken  a  sudden  turn,  at  the 
moment  she  was  about  to  tell  him,  for  the  thought  had 
crossed  her  mind  that  she  ought  to  tell  him.  Then  she 
seemed  to  lose  count  of  everything,  and  was  unable  to  dis- 
tinguish truth  from  falsehood. 

To  increase  her  difficulties,  she  remembered  that  she 
had  betrayed  Owen's  confidence.  She  could  not  quite  ad- 
mit to  herself  that  she  had  a  right  to  tell  her  father  that 
it  was  he.  But  he  had  guessed  it.  ...  It  seemed  impos- 
sible to  do  right.  Perhaps  there  was  no  right  and  no 
wrong,  as  Owen  said;  and  a  wish  rose  from  the  bottom  of 
her  heart  that  it  might  be  so,  and  then  she  feared  she  had 


92  EVELYN  INNES. 

been  guilty  of  blasphemy.  Perhaps  she  should  warn  Owen 
of  her  indiscretion,  and  she  thought  of  herself  going  to 
London  for  this  purpose,  and  smiled  as  she  detected  the 
deception  which  she  was  trying  to  practice  on  herself. 

There  was  nothing  for  her  to  do  in  the  house,  and  when 
she  had  walked  an  hour  in  the  ornamental  park,  she  strayed 
into  the  picture  gallery,  and  stood  a  long  time  looking  at 
the  Dutch  lady  who  was  playing  the  virginal,  and  whose 
life  passed  peacefully,  apparently  without  any  emotion,  in 
a  silent  house  amid  rich  furniture.  But  she  was  soon 
drawn  to  the  Watteau,  where  a  rich  evening  hushes  about 
a  beautiful  carven  colonnade,  under  which  the  court  is 
seated ;  where  gallants  wear  deep  crimson  and  azure  cloaks, 
and  the  ladies  striped  gowns  of  dainty  refinement;  where 
all  the  rows  are  full  of  amorous  intrigue,  and  vows  are  be- 
ing pleaded,  and  mandolines  are  playing;  where  a  fountain 
sings  in  the  garden  and  dancers  perform  their  pavane  or 
minuet,  the  lady  holding  out  her  striped  skirt,  and  the  gen- 
tleman bowing  to  her  with  a  deference  that  seems  a  little 
mocking.  An  hour  of  pensive  attitudes  and  whispered 
confidences,  and  over  every  fan  a  face  wonders  if  there  is 
truth  in  love. 

"  It  is  strange,"  Evelyn  thought,  "  how  one  woman  lives 
in  obscurity,  and  another  in  admiration  and  success.  That 
woman  playing  the  virginal  is  not  ugly ;  if  she  were  dressed 
like  these  seated  under  the  colonnade,  she  would  be  quite 
as  pretty;  but  she  is  not  as  clever,  Owen  would  say,  or  she 
wouldn't  be  playing  the  virginal  in  a  village.  It  is  strange 
how  I  remember  everything  he  says." 

She  thought  of  herself  as  the  lady  in  the  centre,  the  one 
that  looked  like  the  queen,  and  to  whom  a  tall  young  man 
in  a  lovely  cloak  was  being  introduced,  and  then  imagined 
herself  one  of  the  less  important  ladies  who,  for  the  sake  of 
her  beautiful  voice,  would  be  surrounded  and  admired  by 
all  men;  she  would  create  bitter  jealousies  and  annoy  a 
number  of  women,  which,  however,  she  would  endeavour 
to  overcome  by  giving  back  to  them  the  several  lovers  whom 
she  did  not  want  for  herself. 

The  life  in  this  picture  would  be  hers  if  she  took  the 
three  o'clock  train  and  went  to  Berkeley  Square.  The 
life  in  the  other  picture  would  be  hers  if  she  remained  in 
Dul  \vich. 


EVELYN  INNES.  93 

Only  one  more  hour  remained  between  her  and  the 
moment  when  she  would  be  getting  into  the  train,  and  on 
going  out  of  the  gallery  her  senses  all  seemed  awake  at  the 
same  moment;  she  saw  and  felt  and  heard  with  equal  dis- 
tinctness, and  she  seemed  to  be  walking  automatically,  to 
be  moving  forwards  as  if  on  wheels.  She  met  a  friend  on 
her  way  home,  but  it  was  like  talking  to  one  across  a  river 
or  gulf ;  she  wondered  what  she  had  said,  and  hardly  heard, 
on  account  of  the  tumult  within  her,  what  was  being  said 
to  her.  When  she  got  home,  she  noticed  that  she  did  not 
take  off  her  hat;  and  she  ate  her  lunch  without  tasting  it. 
Her  thoughts  were  loud  as  the  clock  which  ticked  out  the 
last  minutes  she  was  to  remain  at  home,  and  trying  not  to 
hear  them,  she  turned  to  the  Monna  Lisa,  wondering  what 
Owen  meant  when  he  had  said  that  the  hesitating  smile  in 
the  picture  was  like  her  smile.  Her  thoughts  ran  on  tick- 
ing in  her  brain  like  the  clock  in  the  corner  of  a  room, 
and  though  she  would  have  given  anything  to  stop  think- 
ing, she  could  not. 

Every  moment  the  agony  of  anxiety  and  nervousness 
increased,  and  it  was  almost  a  relief  when  the  clock  pointed 
to  the  time  when  she  would  have  to  go  to  the  station.  She 
looked  round  the  room,  a  great  despair  mounted  into  her 
eyes,  and  she  walked  quickly  out  of  the  house.  As  she 
went  down  the  street  she  tried  to  think  that  she  was  going 
to  Owen  to  tell  him  she  had  told  her  father  that  she  was 
resolved  to  give  him  up.  It  seemed  no  longer  difficult  to 
do  this,  for,  on  looking  into  her  mind,  she  could  discover 
neither  desire  nor  love,  nor  any  wish  to  see  him.  She  was 
only  conscious  of  a  nervous  agitation  which  she  could  not 
control,  and  through  this  waking  nightmare  she  walked 
steadily,  thinking  with  extraordinary  clearness. 

In  the  railway  carriage  the  passengers  noticed  her  pal- 
lor, and  they  wondered  what  her  trouble  was,  and  at  Vic- 
toria, the  omnibus  conductor  just  saved  her  from  being  run 
over.  The  omnibus  jogged  on,  stopping  now  and  then  for 
people  to  get  in  and  out,  and  Evelyn  wondered  at  the  ex- 
traordinary mechanism  of  life,  and  she  took  note  of  every- 
one's peculiarities,  wondering  what  were  their  business  and 
desires,  and  wondering  also  at  the  conductor's  voice  crying 
out  the  different  parts  of  the  town  the  omnibus  would  pass 
through. 


9-i  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  This  is  Berkeley  Street,  miss,  if  you  are  getting  out 
here." 

She  waited  a  few  minutes  at  the  corner,  and  then  wan- 
dered down  the  street,  asking  herself  if  it  was  yet  too  late 
to  turn  back. 

The  sun  glanced  through  the  foliage,  and  glittered  on 
the  cockades  of  the  coachmen  and  on  the  shining  hides  of 
the  horses.  It  was  the  height  of  the  season,  and  the  young 
beauties  of  the  year,  and  the  fashionable  beauties  of  the 
last  decade,  lay  back,  sunning  themselves  under  the  shade 
of  their  parasols.  The  carriages  came  round  the  square 
close  to  the  curb,  under  the  waving  branches,  and,  waiting 
for  an  opportunity  to  cross,  Evelyn's  eyes  followed  an 
unusually  beautiful  carriage,  drawn  by  a  pair  of  chestnut 
horses.  She  did  not  see  the  lady's  face,  but  she  wore  a 
yellow  dress,  and  the  irises  in  her  bonnet  nodded  over  the 
hood  of  the  carriage.  This  lady,  graceful  and  idle,  seemed 
to  mean  something,  but  what?  Evelyn  thought  of  the  pic- 
ture of  the  colonnade  in  the  gallery. 

The  men  to  whom  the  stately  servants  opened  the  doors 
wore  long  frock  coats  pinched  at  the  waists,  and  they  swung 
their  caries  and  carried  their  thick,  yellow  gloves  in  their 
hands.  They  were  all  like  Owen.  They  all  lived  as  he 
lived,  for  pleasure;  they  were  all  here  for  the  season,  for 
balls  and  dinner  parties,  for  love  making  and  the  opera. 

"  They  are  the  people,"  Evelyn  thought,  "  who  will  pay 
thousands  to  hear  me  sing.  They  are  the  people  who  will 
invite  me  to  their  houses.  If  my  voice  is  cultivated,  if  I 
ever  go  abroad." 

She  ran  across  the  street  and  walked  under  the  branches 
until  she  came  to  the  gate.  But  why  not  go  straight  to  the 
house?  She  did  not  know.  .  .  .  She  was  at  the  gate,  and 
the  square  looked  green  and  cool.  The  gate  swung  to 
and  closed  with  a  snap;  but  she  had  the  key  and  could 
leave  when  she  liked,  and  worn  out  with  various  fears  she 
walked  aimlessly  about  the  grass  plot.  There  was  no  one 
in  the  square,  so  if  he  were  watching  for  her  he  could  not 
fail  to  see  her.  Once  more  a  puerile  hope  crossed  her  mind 
fitfully,  that  perhaps  it  would  be  as  well  if  he  failed  to  see 
her.  But  no,  since  she  had  gone  so  far  she  was  determined 
to  go  on  to  the  end,  and  before  this  determination,  lu-r 
spirits  revived,  and  she  waited  for  him  to  come  to  her. 


EVELYN  INNES.  95 

But  for  shyness  she  did  not  dare  to  look  round,  and  the 
minutes  she  walked  under  the  shady  trees  were  very  de- 
lightful, for  she  was  penetrated  with  an  intimate  convic- 
tion that  she  would  not  be  disappointed.  And  one  of  the 
moments  of  her  life  that  fixed  itself  most  vividly  on  her 
mind  was  when  she  saw  Owen  coming  towards  her  through 
the  trees.  He  was  so  tall  and  thin,  and  walked  so  grace- 
fully; there  was  something  in  his  walk  that  delighted  her; 
it  seemed  to  her  that  it  was  like  the  long,  soft  stride  of 
a  cat. 

"  I  am  glad  you  have  come,"  he  said. 

But  she  could  not  answer.  A  moment  afterwards  he 
said,  and  she  noticed  that  his  voice  trembled,  "  You  are 
coming  in  to  tea  ?  " 

Again  she  did  not  answer,  and  thinking  it  safer  to  take 
things  for  granted,  he  walked  towards  the  gate.  He  was  at 
the  point  of  saying,  "  That  is  my  house,"  but  he  checked 
himself,  thinking  that  silence  was  safer  than  speech.  He 
could  not  get  the  gate  open,  and  while  he  wrenched  at  the 
lock,  he  dreaded  that  delay  might  give  her  time  to  change 
her  mind.  But  Evelyn  was  now  quite  determined.  Her 
brain  seemed  to  effervesce  and  her  blood  to  bubble  with  joy, 
a  triumphant  happiness  filled  her,  for  no  doubt  remained 
that  she  was  going  to  Paris  to-night. 

"  Let  us  have  tea  as  soon  as  possible,  and  tell  Stanley 
to  bring  the  brougham  round  at  once." 

"  Why  did  you  order  the  brougham  ?  " 

"Are  you  not ?     I  thought — 

The  brilliancy  of  her  eyes  answered  him,  and  he  took 
her  hands. 

"  Then  you  are  coming  with  me  to  Paris  ?  " 

"  Yes,  if  you  like,  Owen,  anywhere." 

"  The  brougham  will  be  round  in  half  an  hour.  There 
is  a  train  at  six  to  Dover.  It  gets  there  at  nine.  So  we 
shall  have  time  to  dine  at  the  Lord  Warden,  and  get  on 
board  the  boat  before  the  mail  arrives." 

"  But  I  have  no  clothes." 

"  The  night  is  fine ;  we  shall  have  a  lovely  crossing ; 
you  will  only  want  a  shawl  and  a  rug.  .  .  .  But  what  are 
you  thinking  of  ?  You  don't  regret  ?  " 

His  eyes  were  tenderer  than  hers.  She  perceived  in 
their  grey  lights  a  tenderness,  an  affection  which  seemed 
7 


9G  EVELYN  INNES. 

in  contradiction  to  his  nature  as  she  had  hitherto  under- 
stood it.  Even  the  thought  flashed  dimly  in  the  back- 
ground of  her  mind  that  his  love  was  truer  than  hers;  his 
cynicism,  which  had  often  frightened  her,  seemed  to  have 
vanished;  indeed,  there  was  something  different  in  him 
from  the  man  she  had  hitherto  known — a  difference  which 
was  rendered  evident  by  the  accent  with  which  he  said — 

"  Dearest  Evelyn,  this  is  the  happiest  moment  of  my 
life.  I  have  spent  two  terrible  days  wondering  if  you 
would  come." 

"  Did  you,  dear  ?  Did  you  think  of  me  ?  Are  you  fond 
of  me?" 

He  pressed  her  hand,  and  with  one  look  answered  her 
question,  and  she  saw  the  streets  flash  past  her — for  they 
were  in  the  brougham  driving  to  Charing  Cross.  There 
was  still  the  danger  of  meeting  Mr.  Innes  at  the  station; 
but  the  danger  was  slight.  She  knew  of  no  business  that 
would  take  him  to  Charing  Cross,  and  they  were  thankful 
the  train  did  not  start  from  Victoria. 

Owen  called  to  his  coachman  to  hasten.  They  had 
wasted,  he  said,  too  much  time  over  the  tea  table,  and 
might  miss  the  train.  But  they  did  not  miss  it,  and 
through  the  heat  of  the  long,  summer  afternoon  the  slow 
train  jogged  peacefully  through  the  beautiful  undulations 
of  the  southern  counties.  The  sky  was  quiet  gold  and 
turquoise  blue,  and  far  away  were  ruby  tinted  clouds.  A 
peaceful  light  floated  over  the  hill  sides  and  dozed  in  the 
hollows,  and  the  happiness  of  the  world  seemed  eternal. 
Deep,  cool  shadows  filled  the  copses,  and  the  green  corn  was 
a  foot  high  in  the  fields,  and  every  gate  and  hedgerow  wore 
a  picturesque  aspect.  Evelyn  and  Owen  sat  opposite  each 
other,  talking  in  whispers,  for  they  were  not  alone;  they 
had  not  been  in  time  to  secure  a  private  ^carriage.  The 
delight  that  filled  their  hearts  was  tender  as  the  light  in  the 
valleys  and  the  hill  sides.  But  Evelyn's  feelings  were  the 
more  boisterous,  for  she  was  entering  into  life,  whereas 
Owen  thought  he  was  at  last  within  reach  of  the  ideal  he 
had  sought  from  the  beginning  of  his  life.  This  feeling, 
which  was  very  present  in  his  mind,  appeared  somehow 
through  his  eyes  and  in  his  manner,  and  even  through  the 
tumult  of  her  emotions  she  was  vaguely  aware  that  he  was 
even  nicer  than  she  had  thought.  She  had  never  loved  him 


EVELYN  INNES.  97 

so  much  as  now ;  and  again  the  thought  passed  that  she  had 
not  known  him  before,  and  far  down  in  her  happiness  she 
wondered  which  was  the  true  man. 


X. 

FROM  Dover  they  telegraphed  to  Mr.  Innes — "  Your 
daughter  is  safe.  She  has  gone  abroad  to  study  singing ;  " 
and  at  midnight  they  were  on  board  the  boat.  The  night 
was  strangely  calm  and  blue;  a  little  mist  was  about,  and 
they  stood  watching  the  circle  of  light  which  the  vessel 
shed  upon  the  water,  moving  ever  onwards,  with  darkness 
before  and  after. 

"  Dearest,  what  are  you  thinking  of  ?  " 

"  Of  father.  He  has  received  our  message  by  now. 
Poor  dad,  he  won't  sleep  to-night.  To-morrow  they  will 
all  have  the  news,  and  on  Sunday  in  church  they  will  '  be 
talking  about  it.' " 

"  But  your  voice  would  have  been  wasted.  Your  father 
would  have  reproached  himself;  he  would  think  he  had 
sacrificed  you  to  his  music." 

"  Which  wouldn't  be  true." 

"  True  or  false,  he'd  think  it.  Besides,  it  would  be  true 
in  a  measure." 

Evelyn  told  Owen  of  her  interview  with  her  father  that 
morning,  and  he  said — 

"  You  acted  nobly." 

"Nobly?     Owen!" 

"  There  was  nobility  in  your  conduct." 

"He'll  be  so  lonely,  so  lonely.  And,"  she  exclaimed, 
clasping  her  hands,  "  who  will  play  the  viola  da  gamba  ? " 

"  When  I  bring  you  back  a  great  singer  .  .  .  there'll  be 
substantial  consolation  in  that." 

"  But  he  won't  close  his  eyes  to-night,  and  he'll  miss 
me  at  breakfast  and  at  dinner — his  poor  dinner  all  by 
himself." 

"  But  you  don't  want  to  go  back  to  him  ?  You  love  me 
as  much  as  your  father  ?  " 

They  pressed  each  other's  hands,  and,  striving  to  see 


98  EVELYN  INNES. 

through  the  blue  hollow  of  the  night,  they  thought  of  the 
adventure  of  the  voyage  they  had  undertaken.  Spectral 
ships  loomed  up  and  vanished  in  the  spectral  stillness ;  and 
only  within  the  little  circle  of  light  could  they  perceive  the 
waves  over  which  they  floated.  The  moon  drifted,  and  a 
few  stars  showed  through  the  white  wrack.  Whither  were 
their  lives  striving?  She  had  thought  that  her  life  in 
Dulwich  must  endure  for  ever,  but  it  had  passed  from  her 
like  a  dream;  it  had  snapped  suddenly,  and  she  floated  on 
another  voyage,  and  still  the  same  mystery  encircled  her  as 
before.  She  knew  that  Owen  loved  her.  This  was  the 
little  circle  of  life  in  which  she  lived,  and  beyond  it  she 
might  imagine  any  story  she  pleased. 

Her  thoughts  reverted  to  the  Eastern  dreamer,  and  she 
realised  that  she  was  living  through  the  tragedy  which  he 
had  written  about,  a  thousand  years  ago  in  his  rose  garden. 
She  might  imagine  what  she  pleased — that  she  was  going  to 
become  a  great  singer,  that  artistic  success  was  the  harbour 
whither  she  steered,  but  in  truth  she  did  not  know.  She 
could  not  believe  such  an  end  to  be  her  destiny.  Then 
what  was  her  destiny?  All  she  had  ever  known  was  behind 
her,  had  floated  into  the  darkness  as  easily  as  those  spectral 
ships;  her  religion,  her  father,  her  home,  all  had  vanished, 
and  all  she  knew  was  that  she  was  sailing  through  the  dark- 
ness without  them.  Seen  for  a  moment  in  the  light  of  the 
high  moon,  and  then  in  shrouded  blue  night,  a  great  ship 
came  and  went,  and  Evelyn  clung  to  the  arm  of  her  lover. 
He  folded  the  rough  shawl  he  had  bought  at  Charing  Cross 
about  her  shoulders.  The  lights  of  Calais  harbour  grew 
larger,  the  foghorn  snorted,  the  vessel  veered,  and  there  was 
preparation  on  board;  the  crowd  thickened,  and  as  the 
night  grew  fainter  they  saw  between  the  dawn  and  the 
silvery  moon  the  long  low  sandhills  of  the  French  coast. 
The  vessel  veered  and  entered  the  harbour,  and  as  she 
churned  alongside  the  windy  piers,  the  mystery  with  which 
a  moonlit  sea  had  filled  their  hearts  passed,  and  they  were 
taken  in  an  access  of  happiness;  and  they  cried  to  each 
other  for  sheer  joy  as  they  struggled  up  the  gangway. 

They  were  in  France!  their  life  of  love  was  before 
them!  He  could  hardly  take  his  eyes  off  the  delicious 
girl;  and  soon  two  or  three  waiters  attended  at  her  first 
meal,  her  first  acquaintance  with  French  food  and  wine! 


EVELYN  INNES.  99 

Owen  was  known  on  the  line,  and  the  obsequiousness  shown 
to  him  flattered  her,  and  it  was  thrilling  to  read  his  name 
on  the  window  of  their  carriage.  Her  foot  was  on  the 
footboard,  and  seeing  the  empty  carriage  the  thought 
struck  her,  "  We  shall  be  alone ;  he'll  be  able  to  kiss  me." 
And,  her  heart  beating  with  fear  and  delight,  she  got  in 
and  sat  speechless  in  a  corner. 

As  the  train  moved  out  of  the  station  he  took  her  hand, 
and  said  that  he  hoped  they  would  be  very  happy  together. 
She  looked  at  him,  and  in  her  eyes  there  was  a  little  ques- 
tioning, almost  cynical  look,  which  perplexed  him.  The 
part  he  had  to  play  was  a  difficult  one,  and  on  board  the 
boat,  in  the  pauses  of  their  conversation,  he  had  felt  that 
his  future  influence  over  Evelyn  depended  upon  his  con- 
duct during  the  forthcoming  week.  This  foresight  had  its 
origin  in  his  temperament.  It  was  his  temperament  to 
suggest  and  to  lead,  and  as  he  talked  to  her  of  Madame 
Savelli,  the  great  singing  mistress,  and  Lady  Duckle,  a  lady 
whom  he  hoped  to  induce  to  come  to  Paris  to  chaperon  her, 
he  saw  the  hotel  sitting-room  at  the  moment  when  the 
waiter,  having  brought  in  the  coffee,  and  delayed  his  de- 
parture as  long  as  he  possibly  could,  would  finally  close  the 
door.  Nervousness  dilated  her  eyes,  and  his  thoughts  were 
often  far  from  his  words.  He  often  had  to  catch  his 
breath,  and  he  quailed  before  the  dread  interrogation  which 
often  looked  out  of  her  eyes.  They  had  passed  Boulogne, 
and  through  the  dawn,  vague  as  an  opal,  appeared  a  low 
range  of  hills,  and  as  these  receded,  the  landscape  flattened 
out  into  a  bleak,  morose  plain. 

The  sight  of  a  broken  and  abandoned  boat  amid  the 
sedge  wakened  a  sense  of  dread,  and  they  thought  of  an 
expiation  of  sin  in  this  desolate  region.  They  feared  the 
low  grange,  crouching  under  five  melancholy  poplars,  and 
wished  for  roses,  blue  skies  and  sunshine,  a  landscape  that 
lovers  might  be  happy  in;  and  the  thought  of  the  brutal 
embraces  of  Picardy  peasants  filled  Owen  with  shame. 
The  train  stopped  at  Amiens,  and  a  few  minutes  after  was 
again  rushing  through  the  same  treeless  country.  The 
patches  of  green  corn  were  dismal  in  the  undivided  waste, 
and  the  houses  were  all  closed. 

"  Fancy  living  in  such  a  country;  awaking  every  morn- 
ing to  such  a  blankness." 


100  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  Well,  none  of  us  look  our  best  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
morning." 

She  smiled  a  little;  she  was  beginning  to  feel  tired. 
He  was  very  kind,  and  it  was  nice  to  feel  his  arms  about 
her  as  he  folded  her  in  his  rug  and  laid  her  full  length 
along  the  seat.  She  thought  that  if  she  had  done  wrong  in 
leaving  home,  the  sin  was  worth  all  the  scruples  she  might 
endure,  and  she  rejoiced  that  she  endured  none.  The  train 
seemed  to  stop,  and  the  names  of  the  stations  sounded  dim 
in  her  ears.  Her  perceptions  rose  and  sank,  and,  as  they 
sank,  the  villa  engarlanded,  of  which  Owen  had  spoken, 
seemed  there.  Its  gates,  though  unbarred,  were  impassable. 
She  thought  she  was  shaking  them,  but  when  she  opened  her 
eyes  it  was  Owen  telling  her.  She  heard  him  say  that 
they  had  passed  the  fortifications,  that  they  were  in  Paris. 

He  had  brought  with  him  only  his  dressing-bag,  so  they 
were  not  detained  at  the  Customs.  His  valet  was  follow- 
ing with  the  rest  of  his  luggage,  and  as  soon  as  she  had  had 
a  few  hours'  sleep,  he  would  take  her  to  different  shops. 
She  clung  on  to  his  arm.  Paris  seemed  very  cold  and 
cheerless,  and  she  did  not  like  the  tall,  haggard  houses,  nor 
the  slattern  waiter  arranging  chairs  in  front  of  an  early 
cafe,  nor  the  humble  servant  clattering  down  the  pavement 
in  wooden  shoes.  She  saw  these  things  with  tired  eyes,  and 
she  was  dimly  aware  of  a  decrepit  carriage  drawn  by  two 
decrepit  horses,  and  then  of  a  great  hotel  built  about  a 
courtyard.  She  heard  Owen  arguing  about  rooms,  but  it 
seemed  to  her  that  a  room  where  there  was  a  bed  was  all 
that  she  desired. 

But  the  blank  hotel  bedroom,  so  formal  and  cheerless, 
frightened  her,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  could  not 
undress  and  climb  into  that  high  bed.  And  she  had  no 
clothes — not  even  a  nightgown.  The  chambermaid  brought 
her  a  cup  of  chocolate,  and  when  she  had  drank  it  she  fell 
asleep,  seeing  the  wood  fire  burning,  and  thinking  how 
tired  she  was. 

It  was  the  chambermaid  knocking.  It  was  time  for  her 
to  get  up,  and  Owen  had  sent  her  a  brush  and  comb.  She 
could  only  wash  her  face  with  the  corner  of  a  damp  towel. 
Her  stockings  were  full  of  dust — all,  she  reflected,  the  dis- 
comforts of  an  elopement.  As  she  brushed  out  her  hair 
with  Owen's  brush,  she  wondered  what  he  could  see  to  like 


EVELYN  INNES.  101 

in  her.  She  admired  his  discretion — really,  this  hotel 
seemed  as  unlikely  a  place  for  love-making  as  the  gloomy 
plain  of  Picardy. 

She  was  pinning  on  her  hat  when  he  knocked.  He 
told  her  that  he  had  been  promised  some  nice  rooms  on  the 
second  floor  later  in  the  day,  and  they  went  to  breakfast  at 
Voisin's.  The  rest  of  the  day  was  spent  getting  in  and 
out  of  cabs. 

They  took  the  shops  as  they  came.  The  first  was  a  boot 
and  shoe  maker,  and  in  a  few  moments  between  four  and 
five  hundred  francs  had  been  spent.  This  seemed  to  Evelyn 
an  unheard-of  extravagance.  Chemises  at  a  hundred  and 
a  hundred  and  twenty  francs  apiece  were  a  joy  to  behold 
and  a  delicacy  to  touch.  The  discovery  that  every  petti- 
coat cost  fifty  francs  seriously  alarmed  her.  They  visited 
the  bonnet  shop  later  in  the  afternoon.  By  that  time  she 
had  grown  hardened,  and  it  seemed  almost  natural  to  pay 
two  hundred  francs  for  a  hat.  Two  of  her  dresses  were 
bought  ready  made.  In  the  next  shop — it  was  a  glove  shop 
— as  she  was  about  to  consult  him  regarding  the  number  of 
buttons  there  came  to  her  a  sudden  moment  of  painful 
realisation.  She  turned  pale,  and  the  words  caught  in 
her  throat.  Fortunately,  his  eyes  were  turned  from  her, 
and  he  perceived  nothing  of  the  nervous  agitation  which 
consumed  her;  but  on  leaving  the  shop,  a  little  way  down 
the  street,  when  she  had  recovered  herself  sufficiently  to 
observe  him,  she  perceived  that  he  was  suffering  from  the 
same  agitation.  He  seemed  unable  to  fix  his  attention 
upon  the  present  moment.  He  seemed  to  have  wandered 
far  afield,  and  when  with  an  effort  he  returned  to  the  pres- 
ent, he  seemed  like  a  man  coming  out  of  another  atmos- 
phere— out  of  a  mist. 

At  six  they  were  back  at  their  hotel,  surveying  the  sit- 
ting-rooms, already  littered  with  cardboard  boxes.  But  he 
hurried  her  off  to  the  Rue  de  la  Paix,  saying  that  she  must 
have  some  jewels.  Trays  of  diamonds,  rubies,  emeralds 
and  pearls  were  presented  to  her  for  choice. 

"  You're  not  looking,"  he  said,  feigning  surprise.  "  You 
take  no  interest  in  jewels ;  aren't  you  well  ?  " 

"  Yes,  dearest ;  but  I'm  bewildered." 

When  they  returned  to  the  hotel,  the  gown  she  was  to 
wear  that  night  at  the  opera  had  arrived. 


102  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  It  must  have  cost  twenty  pounds,  and  I  usen't  to 
spend  much  more  than  that  in  a  whole  year  on  my 
clothes." 

Neither  cared  to  go  to  the  opera;  but  half -past  ten 
seemed  to  him  quite  a  proper  time  for  them  to  return 
home,  and  for  this  makeshift  propriety  he  was  so  bored 
with  "  Lohengrin "  that  he  never  saw  it  afterwards  with 
the  old  pleasure;  and  Evelyn's  glances  told  of  the  wasted 
hours.  While  Elsa  sang  her  dream,  he  realised  the  depth 
of  his  folly.  If  something  were  to  happen?  If  they  were 
to  find  Mr.  Innes  waiting  at  the  door  of  the  hotel?  If  he 
were  robbed  of  her,  it  would  serve  him  right.  The  aria 
in  the  second  act  was  beautifully  sung,  and  it  helped  them 
to  forget;  but  with  the  rather  rough  chorus  of  men  in  the 
second  half  of  the  second  act,  their  nervous  boredom  began 
again,  and  Evelyn's  face  was  explicit. 

"You're  tired,  Evelyn;  you're  too  tired  to  listen." 

"  Yes,  I'm  tired,  let's  go ;  give  me  my  cloak." 

He  felt  her  hand  tremble  on  his  arm. 

"  In  two  years  hence  you'll  be  singing  here.  .  .  .  But 
you  don't  answer." 

"  Owen,  dear,  I'm  thinking  of  you  now." 

Her  answer  was  a  delicious  flattery,  and  he  hurried  her 
to  the  carriage.  The  moment  his  arm  was  about  her  she 
leaned  over  him,  and  when  their  lips  parted  he  uttered  a  lit- 
tle cry.  But  in  the  middle  of  the  sitting-room  she  stopped 
and  faced  him,  barring  the  way.  He  took  her  cloak  from 
her  shoulders. 

They  were  going  to  the  races  on  the  Sunday  after  their 
arrival.  Owen  wished  her  to  wear  a  flower  embroidered 
dress,  but  her  fancy  was  set  on  a  pale  yellow  muslin,  and 
it  amused  her  to  get  cross  with  him  and  to  send  him  out  of 
the  room;  but  when  the  door  closed  she  was  moved  to  run 
after  him.  The  grave  question  as  to  what  she  would  wear 
dispelled  other  thoughts.  She  must  be  serious;  and  to 
please  him  she  decided  she  would  wear  the  gown  he  liked, 
and  as  she  fixed  the  hat  that  went  with  it  she  admired  the 
contrast  of  its  purple  with  her  rich  hair.  Owen  was  always 
right.  She  had  never  thought  that  she  could  look  so  well, 
and  it  was  a  happy  moment  when  he  took  her  by  both  handa 
and  said 


EVELYN  INNES.  103 

"  Dearest,  you  are  delicious — quite  delicious.  You'll  be 
the  prettiest  woman  at  Longchamps  to-day." 

She  asked  for  tea,  but  he  said  they  were  in  France,  and 
must  conform  to  French  taste.  When  Marie  Antoinette 
was  informed  that  the  people  wanted  bread,  etc.  Evelyn 
thought  Marie  Antoinette  must  have  been  a  cruel  woman. 
But  she  liked  chocolate  and  the  brioche,  and  henceforth 
they  were  brought  to  her  bedside,  and  in  a  Sevres  service, 
a  present  from  Owen. 

When  they  had  finished  the  little  meal  he  rang  for 
writing  material,  and  said 

"  Now,  my  dear  Evelyn,  you  must  write  to  your  father." 

"Must  I?  What  shall  I  say?  Oh,  Owen,  I  cannot 
write.  If  I  did,  father  would  come  over  here,  and 
then " 

"  I'll  tell  you  what  to  say.  I'll  dictate  the  letter  you 
ought  to  write.  You  need  not  give  him  any  address,  but 
you  must  let  him  know  you're  well,  and  why  you  intend  to 
remain  abroad.  It  is  by  relieving  his  mind  on  these  sub- 
jects that  you'll  save  yourself  from  the  vexation  of  his  hunt- 
ing you  up  here.  .  .  .  Come,  now,"  he  said,  noticing  the 
agonised  and  bewildered  look  on  Evelyn's  face,  "  this  is 
the  only  disagreeable  hour  in  the  day — you  must  put  up 
with  it.  Here  is  the  pen.  Now,  write 

"'Mr  DEAR  FATHER — I  should  be  happy  in  Paris,  very 
happy,  if  it  were  not  for  the  knowledge  of  the  grief  that  my 
flight  must  have  occasioned  you.  Of  course  I  have  acted 
very  wrongly,  very  wickedly ' " 

"  But,"  said  Evelyn,  "  you  told  me  I  was  acting  rightly, 
that  to  do  otherwise  would  be  madness." 

"  Yes,  and  I  only  told  you  the  truth.  But  in  writing  to 
your  father  you  must  adopt  the  conventional  tone.  There's 
no  use  in  trying  to  persuade  you  father  you  did  right. 
...  I  don't  know,  though.  Scratch  out  '  I  have  acted 
wrongly  and  very  wickedly,'  and  write — 

"  '  I  will  not  ask  you  to  think  that  I  have  acted  otherwise 
than  wrongly,  for,  of  course,  as  a  father  you  can  hold  no 
other  opinion,  but  being  also  a  clever  man,  an  artist,  you 
will  perhaps  be  inclined  to  admit  that  my  wrong-doing  is 


104  EVELYN  INNES. 

not  so  irreparable  a  wrong-doing  as  it  might  have  been  in 
other  and  easily  imagined  circumstances.  Full  stop.' 

"  You've  got  that — '  so  irreparable  a  wrong-doing  as  it 
might  have  been  in  other  and  easily  imagined  circum- 
stances '  ? " 

"  Yes." 

" '  Father  dear,  you  know  that  if  I  had  remained  in 
Dulwich  my  voice  would  have  been  wasted,  not  through  my 
fault  or  yours,  but  through  the  fault  of  circumstances.' " 

"  You  have  got  circumstances  a  few  lines  higher  up,  so 
put  '  through  the  fault  of  fate.'  " 

"  Father  will  never  believe  that  I  wrote  this  letter." 
"  That  doesn't  matter — the  truth  is  the  truth  from  who- 
ever it  comes." 

" '  We  should  have  gone  on  deceiving  ourselves,  or  try- 
ing to  deceive  ourselves,  hoping  as  soon  as  the  concerts 
paid  that  I  should  go  abroad  with  a  proper  chaperon.  You 
know,  father  dear,  how  we  used  to  talk,  both  knowing  well 
that  no  such  thing  could  be.  The  years  would  have  slipped 
by,  and  at  five-and-thirty,  when  it  would  have  been  too  late, 
I  should  have  found  myself  exactly  where  I  was  when 
mother  died.  You  would  have  reproached  yourself,  you 
would  have  suffered  remorse,  we  should  have  both  been 
miserable;  whereas  now  I  hope  that  we  shall  both  be 
happy.  You  will  bring  about  a  revival  of  Palestrina,  and  I 
shall  sing  opera.  Be  reasonable,  father,  and  remember 
that  it  had  to  be.  Write  to  me  if  you  can;  to  hear  from 
you  will  make  me  very  happy.  But  do  not  try  to  seek  me 
out  and  endeavour  to  induce  me  to  return  home.  Any 
meeting  between  us  now  would  merely  mean  intolerable 
suffering  to  both  of  us,  and  it  would  serve  no  purpose  what- 
ever. A  little  later,  when  I  have  succeeded,  when  I  am  a 
great  singer,  I  will  come  and  see  you,  that  is  to  say  if  you 
will  see  me.  Meanwhile,  for  a  year  or  two  we  had  better 
not  meet,  but  I'll  write  constantly,  and  shall  look  forward 
to  your  letters.  Again,  my  dear  father,  I  beseech  you  to 
be  reasonable;  everything  will  come  right  in  the  end.  I 
will  not  conceal  from  you  the  fact  that  Sir  Owen  Asher 
advised  me  to  this  step.  He  is  very  fond  of  me,  and  is  de- 


EVELYX  1XNES.  105 

termlned  to  help  me  in  every  way.  When  he  brings  me 
back  to  England  a  great  singer,  he  hopes  you  will  try  to 
look  on  his  fault  with  as  much  leniency  as  may  be.  He 
asks  me  to  warn  you  against  speaking  of  him  in  connection 
with  me,  for  any  accusation  brought  against  him  will  in- 
jure me.  He  intends  to  provide  me  with  a  proper  chaperon. 
I  need  not  mention  her  name;  suffice  to  say  that  she  is  a 
very  grand  lady,  so  appearances  will  be  preserved.  No  one 
need  know  anything  for  certain  if  you  do  not  tell  them. 
If  you  will  promise  to  do  this,  I  will  send  the  name  of  the 
lady  with  whom  I  am  going  to  live.  You  can  say  that  I  am 
living  with  her;  her  name  will  be  a  sufficient  cloak — every- 
one will  be  satisfied.  Interference  can  be  productive 
of  no  good,  remember  that;  let  things  take  their  natural 
course,  and  they  will  come  right  in  the  end.  If  you  decide 
to  do  as  I  ask  you,  write  at  once  to  me,  and  address  your 
letter  to  31  Kue  Faubourg  St.  Honore,  care  of  Monsieur 
Blanco. — Always,  dear  father,  Your  affectionate  daughter, 

EVELYN  INNES.'  " 

"  How  clever  you  are !  "  she  said,  looking  up.  "  You 
have  written  just  the  kind  of  letter  that  will  influence  fa- 
ther. I  have  lived  with  father  all  my  life,  and  yet  I 
couldn't  have  known  how  to  write  that  letter.  How  did 
you  think  of  it?  " 

"  I've  put  the  case  truthfully,  haven't  I  ?  Now,  do  you 
copy  out  that  letter  and  address  it;  meanwhile  I'll  go 
round  to  Voisin's  and  order  breakfast.  Try  to  have  it 
finished  by  the  time  I  get  back.  We'll  post  it  on  our  way." 

She  promised  that  she  would  do  so,  but  instead  sat  a 
long  while  with  the  letter  in  her  hands.  It  was  so  unlike 
herself  that  she  could  not  bring  herself  to  send  it.  It  would 
not  satisfy  her  father,  he  would  sooner  receive  something 
from  her  own  familiar  heart,  and,  obeying  a  sudden  im- 
pulse she  wrote — 

"  MY  DARLING — What  must  you  think  of  me,  I  wonder ! 
that  I  am  an  ungrateful  girl?  I  hope  not.  I  don't  think 
you  would  be  so  unjust  as  to  think  such  things  of  me.  I 
have  been  very  wicked,  but  I  have  always  loved  you,  father, 
and  never  more  than  now;  and  had  anything  in  the  world 
"been  able  to  stop  me,  it  would  have  been  my  love  of  you. 


106  EVELYN  INNES. 

But,  father  dear,  it  was  just  as  I  told  you;  I  was  deter- 
mined to  resist  the  temptation  if  I  could,  but  when  the  time 
came  I  could  not.  I  did  my  best,  indeed  I  did.  I  went 
through  agony  after  agony  after  you  left,  and  in  the  end  I 
had  to  go  whether  I  desired  it  or  not.  I  could  not  have 
stopped  in  Dulwich  any  longer ;  if  I  had  I  should  have  died, 
and  then  you  would  have  lost  me  altogether.  You  would 
not  have  liked  to  see  me  pine  away,  grow  white,  and  lie 
coughing  on  the  sofa  like  poor  mother.  No,  you  would  not. 
It  would  have  killed  you.  You  remember  how  ill  I  was 
last  Easter  when  he  was  away  in  the  Mediterranean,  dar- 
ling. We've  always  been  pals,  we've  always  told  each  other 
everything,  we  never  had  any  secrets,  and  never  shall.  I 
should  have  died  if  I  hadn't  gone  away.  Now  I've  told 
you  everything — isn't  that  so? — and  when  I  come  back  a 
great  success,  you'll  come  and  hear  me  sing.  My  success 
would  mean  very  little  if  you  were  not  there.  I  would 
sooner  see  your  dear,  darling  face  in  a  box  than  any  crowned 
head  in  Europe.  If  I  were  only  sure  that  you  would  for- 
give me.  Everything  else  will  turn  out  right.  Owen  will 
be  good  to  me,  I  shall  get  on;  I  have  little  fear  on  that 
score.  If  I  could  only  know  that  you  were  not  too  lonely, 
that  you  were  not  grieving  too  much.  I  shall  write  to 
Margaret  and  beg  her  to  look  after  you.  But  she  is  very 
careless,  and  the  grocer  often  puts  down  things  in  his  book 
that  we  never  had.  A  couple  of  years,  and  then  we  shall 
see  each  other  again.  Do  you  think,  darling,  you  can  live 
all  that  time  without  me?  I  must  try  to  live  that  time 
without  you.  It  will  be  hard  to  do  so,  I  shall  miss  you 
dreadfully,  so  if  you  could  manage  to  write  to  me,  not  too 
cross  a  letter,  it  would  make  a  great  deal  of  difference. 
Of  course,  you  are  thinking  of  the  disgrace  I  have  brought 
on  you.  There  need  be  none.  Owen  is  going  to  provide 
me  with  a  chaperon — a  lady,  he  says,  in  the  best  society.  I 
will  send  you  her  name  next  week,  as  soon  as  Owen  hears 
from  her.  He  may  hear  to-morrow,  and  if  you  say  that  I 
am  living  with  her,  no  one  will  know  anything.  It  is  de- 
ceitful, I  know ;  I  told  Owen  so,  but  he  says  that  we  are  not 
obliged  to  take  the  whole  world  into  our  confidence.  I 
don't  like  it,  but  I  suppose  if  one  does  the  things  one  must 
put  up  with  the  consequences.  Now,  I  must  say  good-bye. 
I've  expressed  myself  badly,  but  you'll  know  what  I  mean — 


EVELYN  INNES.  107 

that  I  love  you  dearly,  that  I  hope  you'll  forgive  me,  and 
be  glad  to  see  me  when  I  come  back,  that  I  shall  always  be — 
Your  affectionate  daughter,  EVELYN." 

She  put  the  letter  into  an  envelope,  and  was  addressing 
it  when  Owen  came  into  the  room. 

"  Have  you  copied  the  letter,  dear  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him  inquiringly,  and  he  wondered  at  her 
embarrassment. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  I  have  written  quite  a  different  letter. 
Yours  was  very  clever,  of  course,  but  it  was  not  like  me. 
I've  written  a  stupid  little  letter,  but  one  which  will  please 
father  better." 

"  I  daresay  you're  right.  If  your  father  suspected  the 
letter  was  dictated  by  me  he  would  resent  it." 

"  That's  just  what  I  thought." 

"  Let  me  see  the  letter  you  have  written." 

"  No ;  don't  look  at  it.     I'd  rather  you  didn't." 

"  Why,  dearest  ?  Because  there's  something  about  me 
in  it?" 

"  No,  indeed.  I  would  not  write  anything  about  you 
that  I  wouldn't  show  you.  No;  what  I  don't  want  you  to 
see  is  about  myself." 

"  About  yourself !  Well,  as  you  like,  don't  show  me 
anything  you  don't  want  to." 

"  But  I  don't  like  to  have  secrets  from  you,  Owen ;  I 
hate  secrets." 

"  One  of  these  days  you'll  tell  me  what  you've  written. 
I'm  quite  satisfied."  He  raised  her  face  and  kissed  her 
tenderly,  and  she  felt  that  she  loved  him  better  for  his  well- 
assumed  indifference.  Then  they  went  downstairs,  and  she 
admired  her  dress  in  the  long  glasses  on  the  landings.  She 
listened  to  his  French  as  he  asked  for  a  stamp.  The  court- 
yard was  full  of  sunlight  and  carriages.  The  pages  pushed 
open  the  glass  doors  for  them  to  pass,  and,  tingling  with 
health  and  all  the  happiness  and  enchantment  of  love,  she 
walked  by  his  side  under  the  arcade — glad  when,  in  walk- 
ing, they  came  against  each  other — swinging  her  parasol 
pensively,  wondering  what  happy  word  to  say,  a  little  per- 
plexed that  she  should  have  a  secret  from  him,  and  all 
the  while  healthily  hungry.  Suddenly  she  recognised 
the  street  as  the  one  where  they  had  dined  on  Friday  night. 


108  EVELYN  INNES. 

He  pushed  open  a  white-painted  door,  and  it  seemed  to  her 
that  all  the  white-aproned  waiters  advanced  to  meet  her; 
and  the  one  who  drew  the  table  forward  that  she  might  pass 
seemed  to  fully  appreciate  the  honour  of  serving  them.  A 
number  of  hors  d'oeuvres  were  placed  before  her,  but  she 
only  ate  bread  and  butter  and  a  radish,  until  Owen  insisted 
on  her  trying  the  filets  d'anchois — the  very  ones  she  was 
originally  most  averse  from.  The  sole  was  cooked  very 
elaborately  in  a  rich  brown  sauce.  The  tiny  chicken  which 
followed  it  was  first  shown  to  her  in  a  tin  saucepan;  then 
the  waiter  took  it  away  and  carved  it  at  a  side  table.  She 
enjoyed  the  melon  which,  for  her  sake,  ended  instead  of 
beginning  the  meal,  as  Owen  said  it  should. 

An  Englishman,  a  friend  of  Owen's,  sat  at  the  next 
table,  and  she  could  see  he  regretted  that  Owen  had  not 
introduced  him.  Most  of  his  conversation  seemed  designed 
for  that  end,  and  when  they  got  up  to  go,  his  eyes  surely 
said,  "  Well,  I  wish  that  he  had  introduced  us ;  I  think  we 
should  have  got  on  together."  And  the  eyes  of  the  young 
man  who  sat  at  the  opposite  table  said,  as  plain  as  any 
words,  "  I'd  have  given  anything  to  have  been  introduced ! 
Shall  we  ever  meet  again  ?  " 

So  her  exit  was  very  thrilling;  and  no  sooner  were  they 
on  the  pavement  than  another  surprise  was  in  store  for  her. 

A  smart  coachman  touched  his  hat,  and  Owen  stepped 
back  for  her  to  get  into  the  victoria. 

"  But  this  is  not  our  carriage  ?  " 

"  You  did  not  think  we  were  going  to  the  Longchamps 
in  a  fiacre,  did  you  ?  This  is  your  carriage — I  bought  these 
horses  yesterday  for  you." 

"  You  bought  this  carriage  and  these  horses  for  me, 
Owen?" 

"Yes,  dear,  I  did;  don't  let's  waste  time.  Aux 
courses! " 

"  Owen,  dear,  I  cannot  accept  such  a  present.  I  ap- 
preciate your  kindness,  but  you  will  not  ask  me  to  accept 
this  carriage  and  horses." 

"Why  not?" 

Evelyn  thought  for  some  time  before  answering. 

"  It  would  only  make  people  think  that  I  was  an  ama- 
teur. The  fine  clothes  you  have  bought  me  I  shall  not  be 
able  to  wear,  except  when  I  want  you  to  think  me  nice.  I 


EVELYN  INNES.  109 

shall  have  to  learn  Italian,  of  which  I  don't  know  a  word, 
and  French,  of  which  I  know  very  little." 

Owen  looked  at  her,  at  once  pleased  and  surprised. 

"  You're  quite  right,"  he  said ;  "  this  carriage  and  these 
horses  are  unsuitable  to  your  present  circumstances.  The 
chestnuts  took  my  fancy  .  .  .  however,  I  haven't  paid  for 
them.  I'll  send  them  back  for  the  present;  they,  or  a  pair 
like  them,  will  come  in  all  right  later  on." 

After  a  slight  pause  she  said — 

"  I  do  not  want  to  run  into  your  debt  more  than  I  can 
help.  If  my  voice  develops,  if  it  be  all  you  think  it  is, 
I  shall  be  able  to  go  on  the  stage  in  a  year,  at  latest  in  a 
year  and  a  half  from  now.  My  mother  was  paid  three  and 
four  hundred  a  week.  Unless  I  fail  altogether,  I  shall  have 
no  difficulty  in  paying  you  back  the  money  you  so  generous- 
ly lent  me." 

"  But  why  do  you  want  to  cost  me  nothing  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  Why  shouldn't  I  pay  you  back  ?  If  I 
succeed  I  shall  have  plenty  of  money;  if  I  don't,  I  daresay 
you'll  overlook  the  debt.  Owen,  dear,  how  enchanting  it 
is  to  be  with  you  in  Paris,  to  wear  these  beautiful  dresses, 
to  drive  in  this  carriage,  to  see  those  lovely  horses,  and  to 
wonder  what  the  races  will  be  like.  You're  not  disappoint- 
ed in  me  ?  I'm  as  nice  as  you  thought  I'd  be  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  you're  a  great  deal  nicer.  I  was  afraid  at  one 
time  you  might  be  a  bore;  scruples  of  conscience  aren't 
very  interesting.  But  somehow  in  your  case  they  don't 
seem  to  matter." 

He  had  always  known  that  he  could  "  make  something 
of  her,"  as  he  used  to  put  it  to  himself,  but  she  exceeded 
his  expectations.  Her  scruples  did  not  bore  him;  they 
were,  indeed,  a  novelty  and  an  excitement  which  he 
would  not  willingly  be  without.  Moreover,  she  was  so  in- 
telligent !  he  had  not  yet  heard  her  make  a  stupid  remark. 
She  had  always  been  interested  in  the  right  things;  and, 
excited  by  her  admiration  of  the  wooden  balconies — the 
metal  lanterns  hanging  from  them,  the  vases  standing  on 
the  steps  leading  to  the  porticoes,  he  attempted  a  reading  of 
these  villas. 

"  How  plain  is  this  paganism !  "  he  said.  "  Seeing  them, 
we  cannot  but  think  of  their  deep  feather  beds,  the  savoury 
omelettes  made  of  new-laid  eggs  served  at  mid-day,  and  fol- 


HO  EVELYN  IXNES. 

lowed  by  juicy  beefsteaks  cooked  in  the  best  butter.  Those 
villas  are  not  only  typical  of  Passy,  but  of  France;  their 
excellent  life  ascends  from  the  peasant's  cottage;  they  are 
the  result  of  agriculture,  which  is  the  original  loveliness. 
All  that  springs  from  agriculture  must  be  beautiful,  just  as 
all  that  springs  from  commerce  must  be  vile.  Manchester 
is  the  ugliest  place  on  the  earth,  and  the  money  of  every  in- 
dividual cotton  spinner  serves  to  multiply  the  original  ugli- 
ness— the  house  he  builds,  the  pictures  he  buys.  Isn't  that 
so?" 

"  I  can't  say,  dear ;  I  have  never  been  to  Manchester. 
But  how  can  you  think  of  such  things  ?  " 

"  Don't  you  like  those  villas  ?  I  love  them,  and  their 
comfort  is  secure;  its  root  is  in  the  earth,  the  only  thing 
we  are  sure  of.  There  is  more  of  pagan  life  and  sentiment 
in  France  than  elsewhere.  Would  you  not  like  to  have  a 
Passy  villa  ?  Would  you  not  like  to  live  here  ?  " 

"  One  of  these  days  I  may  buy  one,  then  you  shall 
come  to  breakfast,  and  I'll  give  you  an  omelette  and  a 
beefsteak.  For  the  present,  I  shall  have  to  put  up  with 
something  less  expensive.  I  must  be  near  my  music  les- 
sons. Thanks  all  the  same,  dearest." 

She  sought  a  reason  for  the  expression  of  thoughtful- 
ness  which  had  suddenly  come  over  his  face. 

"  I  don't  know  how  it  is,  but  I  never  see  Paris  without 
thinking  of  Balzac.  You  don't  know  Balzac;  one  of 
these  days  you  must  read  him.  The  moment  I  begin  to 
notice  Paris,  I  think  I  feel,  see  and  speak  Balzac.  That 
dark  woman  yonder,  with  her  scornful  face,  fills  my 
mind  with  Balzacian  phrases — the  celebrated  courtesan, 
celebrated  for  her  diamonds  and  her  vices,  and  so  on. 
The  little  woman  in  the  next  carriage,  the  Princesse  de 
Saxeville,  would  delight  him.  He  would  devote  an  en- 
tire page  to  the  description  of  her  coat  of  arms — three  azure 
panels,  and  so  on.  And  I  should  read  it,  for  Balzac  made 
all  the  world  beautiful,  even  snobbery.  All  interesting 
people  are  Balzacians.  The  moment  I  know  that  a  man  is 
an  admirer  of  Balzac,  a  sort  of  Freemasonry  is  established 
between  us,  and  I  am  interested  in  him,  as  I  should  be  in  a 
man  who  had  loved  a  woman  whom  I  had  loved." 

"  But  I  shouldn't  like  a  woman  because  I  knew  that  you 
bad  loved  her." 


EVELYN  INNES.  HI 

"  You  are  a  woman ;  but  men  who  have  loved  the  same 
woman  will  seek  each  other  from  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and 
will  take  an  intense  pleasure  in  their  recollections.  I  don't 
know  whether  that  aphorism  is  to  be  found  in  Balzac;  if 
not,  it  is  an  accident  that  prevented  him  from  writing  it, 
for  it  is  quite  Balzacian — only  he  would  give  it  a  turn,  an 
air  of  philosophic  distinction  to  which  it  would  be  useless 
for  me  to  pretend." 

"  I  wonder  if  I  should  like  him.     Tell  me  about  him." 

"  You  would  be  more  likely  than  most  women  to  ap- 
preciate him.  Supposing  you  put  the  matter  to  the  test. 
You  would  not  accept  these  horses,  maybe  you  will  not  re- 
fuse a  humbler  present — an  edition  of  Balzac.  There's  a 
very  good  one  in  fifty-two  volumes." 

"  So  many  as  that  ? " 

"  Yes ;  and  not  one  too  many — each  is  a  masterpiece. 
In  this  enormous  work  there  are  something  like  two  thou- 
sand characters,  and  these  appear  in  some  books  in  princi- 
pal, in  other  books  in  subordinate,  parts.  Balzac  speaks  of 
them  as  we  should  of  real  people.  A  young  lady  is  going 
to  the  opera  and  to  a  ball  afterwards,  and  he  says — 

" '  It  is  easy  to  imagine  her  delight  and  expectation,  for 
was  she  not  going  to  meet  the  delicious  Duchesse  de  la 
Maufregneuse,  and  her  friend  the  celebrated  Madame  d'Es- 
pard,  Coralis,  Lucien  de  Rubempre  and  Rastignac.' 

"  These  people  are  only  mentioned  in  the  Hemoires  de 
deux  jeunes  Mariees.  But  they  are  heroes  and  heroines  in 
other  books,  in  Les  Secrets  de  la  Princesse  de  Cadignan,  Le 
Pere  Goriot,  and  Les  Illusions  Perdues.  Before  you  even 
begin  to  know  Balzac,  you  must  have  read  at  least  twenty 
volumes.  There  is  a  vulgarity  about  those  who  don't  know 
Balzac;  we,  his  worshippers,  recognise  in  each  other  a  re- 
finement of  sense  and  a  peculiar  comprehension  of  life. 
We  are  beings  apart;  we  are  branded  with  the  seal  of  that 
great  mind.  You  should  hear  us  talk  among  ourselves. 
Everyone  knows  that  Popinot  is  the  sublime  hero  of  L'ln- 
terdiction,  but  for  the  moment  some  feeble  Balzacian  does 
not  remember  the  other  books  he  appears  in,  and  is  ashamed 
to  ask.  .  .  .  But  I'm  boring  you." 

"  No,  no ;  I  love  to  listen.  It  is  more  interesting  than 
any  play." 

Owen  looked  at  her  questioningly,  as  if  he  doubted  the 
8 


112  EVELYN  INNES. 

flattery,  which,  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  he  knew  to  be 
quite  sincere. 

"  You  cannot  understand  Paris  until  you  have  read 
Balzac.  Balzac  discovered  Paris;  he  created  Paris.  You 
remember  just  now  what  I  said  of  those  villas?  I  was 
thinking  at  the  moment  of  Balzac.  For  he  begins  one 
story  by  a  reading  of  the  human  characteristics  to  be  per- 
ceived in  its  streets.  He  says  that  there  are  mean  streets, 
and  streets  that  are  merely  honest;  there  are  young  streets 
about  whose  morality  the  public  has  not  yet  formed  any 
opinion;  there  are  murderous  streets — streets  older  than 
the  oldest  hags;  streets  that  we  may  esteem — clean  streets, 
work-a-day  streets  and  commercial  streets.  Some  streets, 
he  says,  begin  well  and  end  badly.  The  Rue  Montmartre, 
for  instance,  has  a  fine  head,  but  it  ends  in  the  tail  of  a 
fish.  How  good  that  is.  You  don't  know  the  Rue  Mont- 
martre? I'll  point  it  out  next  time  we're  that  way.  But 
you  know  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  what  does  that  mean  ?  " 

"  The  Rue  de  la  Paix,  he  says,  is  a  large  street,  and  a 
grand  street,  but  it  certainly  doesn't  awaken  the  gracious 
and  noble  thoughts  that  the  Rue  Royale  suggests  to  every 
sensitive  mind;  nor  has  it  the  dignity  of  the  Place  Ven- 
dome.  The  Place  de  la  Bourse,  he  says,  is  in  the  daytime 
babble  and  prostitution,  but  at  night  it  is  beautiful.  At 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  by  moonlight,  it  is  a  dream  of 
old  Greece." 

"  I  don't  see  much  in  that.  What  you  said  about  the 
villas  was  quite  as  good." 

Fearing  that  the  conversation  lacked  a  familiar  and 
personal  interest,  he  sought  a  transition,  an  idea  by  which 
he  could  connect  it  with  Evelyn  herself.  With  this  object 
he  called  her  attention  to  two  young  men  who,  he  pretended, 
reminded  him  of  Rastignac  and  Morny.  That  woman  in 
the  mail  phaeton  was  an  incipient  Madame  Marncffe;  that 
dark  woman  now  looking  at  them  with  ardent,  amorous 
eyes  might  be  an  Esther. 

"  We're  all  creatures  of  Balzac's  imagination.  You," 
he  said,  turning  a  little  so  that  he  might  see  her  better,  "  are 
intensely  Balzacian." 

"Do  I  remind  you  of  one  of  his  characters?"  Evelyn 
became  more  keenly  interested.  "  Which  one?" 


EVELYN  INNES.  113 

"  You  are  more  like  a  character  he  might  have  painted 
than  anyone  I  can  think  of  in  the  Human  Comedy.  He 
certainly  would  have  been  interested  in  your  temperament. 
But  I  can't  think  which  of  his  women  is  like  you.  You  are 
more  like  the  adorable  Lucieii;  that  is  to  say,  up  to  the 
present." 

"  Who  was  Lucien  ?  " 

"  He  was  the  young  poet  whom  all  Paris  fell  in  love 
with.  He  came  up  to  Paris  with  a  married  woman;  I 
think  they  came  from  Angouleme.  I  haven't  read  Lost 
Illusions  for  twenty  years.  She  and  he  were  the  stars  in  the 
society  of  some  provincial  town,  but  when  they  arrived  in 
Paris  each  thought  the  other  very  common  and  countrified. 
He  compares  her  with  Madame  d'Espard;  she  compares 
him  with  Rastignac;  Balzac  completes  the  picture  with  a 
touch  of  pure  genius — '  They  forgot  that  six  months  would 
transform  them  both  into  exquisi'te  Parisians.'  How  good 
that  is,  what  wonderful  insight  into  life !  " 

"  And  do  they  become  Parisians  ?  " 

"  Yes,  and  then  they  both  regret  that  they  broke  off " 

"  Could  they  not  begin  it  again  ?  " 

"  No ;  it  is  rarely  that  a  liaison  can  be  begun  again — 
life  is  too  hurried.  We  may  not  go  back;  the  past  may 
never  become  the  present — ghosts  come  between." 

"  Then  if  I  broke  it  off  with  you,  or  you  broke  it  off 
with  me,  it  would  be  for  ever  ? " 

"  Do  not  let  us  discuss  such  unpleasant  possibilities ;  " 
and  he  continued  to  search  the  Human  Comedy  for  a  wom- 
an resembling  Evelyn.  "  You  are  essentially  Balzacian — 
all  interesting  things  are — but  I  cannot  remember  any 
woman  in  the  Human  Comedy  like  you — Honorinc,  per- 
haps." 

"  What  does  she  do  ?  " 

"  She's  a  married  woman  who  has  left  her  husband  for 
a  lover  who  very  soon  deserts  her.  Her  husband  tries  in 
vain  to  love  other  women,  but  his  wife  holds  his  affections 
and  he  makes  every  effort  to  win  her  back.  The  story  is 
mainly  on  account  of  these  efforts." 

"  Does  he  succeed  ?  " 

"  Yes.  Honorine  goes  back  to  her  husband,  but  it  cost 
her  her  life.  She  cannot  live  with  a  man  she  doesn't  love. 
That  is  the  point  of  the  story." 


114  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  I  wonder  why  that  should  remind  you  of  me  ?  " 
"  There  is  something  delicate,  rare,  and  mystical  about 
you  both.  But  I  can't  say  I  place  Honorine  very  high 
among  Balzac's  works.  There  are  beautiful  touches  in  it, 
but  I  think  he  failed  to  realise  the  type.  You  are  more  vi- 
rile, more  real  to  me  than  Honorine.  No;  on  the  whole, 
Balzac  has  not  done  you.  He  perceived  you  dimly.  If  he 
had  lived  it  might,  it  certainly  would,  have  been  other- 
wise. There  is,  of  course,  the  Duchesse  Langeais.  There 
is  something  of  you  in  her;  but  she  is  no  more  than 
a  brilliant  sketch,  no  better  than  Honorine.  There  is 
Eugenie  Grandet.  But  no;  Balzac  never  painted  your 
portrait." 

Like  all  good  talkers,  he  knew  how  to  delude  his  lis- 
teners into  the  belief  that  they  were  taking  an  important 
part  in  the  conversation.  He  allowed  them  to  speak,  he  so- 
licited their  opinions,  and  listened  as  if  they  awakened  the 
keenest  interest  in  him ;  he  developed  what  they  had  vague- 
ly suggested.  He  paused  before  their  remarks,  he  tempted 
his  listener  into  personal  appreciations  and  sudden  revela- 
tions of  character.  He  addressed  an  intimate  vanity  and 
became  the  inspiration  of  every  choice,  and  in  a  mysterious 
reticulation  of  emotions,  tastes  and  ideas,  life  itself  seemed 
to  converge  to  his  ultimate  authority.  And  having  induced 
recognition  of  the  wisdom  of  his  wishes,  he  knew  how  to 
make  his  yoke  agreeable  to  bear;  it  never  galled  the  back 
that  bore  it,  it  lay  upon  it  soft  as  a  silken  gown.  Evelyn 
enjoyed  the  gentle  imposition  of  his  will.  Obedience  be- 
came a  delight,  and  in  its  intellectual  sloth  life  floated  as 
in  an  opium  dream  without  end,  dissolving  as  the  sunset 
dissolves  in  various  modulations.  Obedience  is  a  divine 
sensualism;  it  is  the  sensualism  of  the  saints;  its  lassi- 
tudes are  animated  with  deep  pauses  and  thrills  of  love  and 
worship.  We  lift  our  eyes,  and  a  great  joy  fills  our  hearts, 
and  we  sink  away  into  blisses  of  remote  consciousness. 
The  delights  of  obedience  are  the  highest  felicities  of  love, 
and  these  Evelyn  had  begun  to  experience.  She  had  as- 
cended already  into  this  happy  nowhere.  She  was  aware  of 
him,  and  a  little  of  the  brilliant  goal  whither  he  was  lead- 
ing her.  She  was  the  instrument,  he  was  the  hand  that 
played  upon  it,  and  all  that  had  happened  from  hour  to 
hour  in  their  mutual  existence  revealed  in  some  new  and 


EVELYN  INNES.  115 

unexpected  way  his  mastery  over  life.  She  had  seen  great 
ladies  bowing  to  him,  smiling  upon  him  in  a  way  that  told 
their  intention  to  get  him  away  from  her.  She  heard  scraps 
of  his  conversation  with  the  French  and  English  noblemen 
who  had  stopped  to  speak  to  him;  and  now,  as  Owen  was 
getting  into  the  victoria,  after  a  brief  visit  to  some  great 
lady  who  had  sent  her  footman  to  fetch  him,  a  man,  who 
looked  to  Evelyn  like  a  sort  of  superior  groom,  came  breath- 
less to  their  carriage.  He  had  only  just  heard  that  Owen 
was  on  the  course.  He  was  the  great  English  trainer  from 
Chantilly,  and  had  tried  Armide  II  to  win  with  a  stone 
more  on  his  back  than  he  had  to  carry. 

"  That  is  the  horse,"  and  Owen  pointed  to  a  big  chest- 
nut. "  The  third  horse — orange  and  white  sleeves,  black 
cap  .  .  .  they  are  going  now  for  the  preliminary  canter. 
We  shall  have  just  time  to  back  him.  There  is  a  Pari  Mu- 
tuel  a  little  way  down  the  course ;  or  shall  we  back  the  horse 
in  the  ring  ?  No,  it  is  too  late  to  get  across  the  course.  The 
Pari  Mutuel  will  do.  Isn't  the  racecourse  like  an  English 
lawn,  like  an  overgrown  croquet  grown?  and  the  horses  go 
round  by  these  plantations." 

It  was  not  fashionable,  he  admitted,  for  a  lady  to  leave 
her  carriage,  but  no  one  knew  her.  It  did  not  matter,  and 
the  spectacle  amused  her.  But  there  was  only  time  to  catch 
a  glimpse  of  beautiful  toilettes,  actresses  and  princesses, 
and  the  young  men  standing  on  the  steps  of  the  carriages. 
Owen  whispered  the  names  of  the  most  celebrated,  and  told 
her  she  should  know  them  when  she  was  on  the  stage.  At 
present  it  would  be  better  for  her  to  live  quietly — unknown; 
her  lessons  would  take  all  her  time.  He  talked  as  he  has- 
tened her  towards  where  a  crowd  had  collected.  She  saw 
what  looked  like  a  small  omnibus,  with  a  man  distributing 
tickets.  Owen  took  five  louis  out  of  her  purse  and  handed 
them  to  the  man,  who  in  return  handed  her  a  ticket.  They 
would  see  the  race  better  from  their  carriage,  but  it  was 
pleasaiiter  to  stroll  about  the  warm  grass  and  admire  the 
little  woods  which  surrounded  this  elegant  pleasure-ground, 
the  white  painted  stands  with  all  their  flags  flying  on  the 
blue  summer  air,  the  glitter  of  the  carriages,  the  colour  of 
the  parasols,  the  bright  jackets  and  caps  of  the  jockeys,  the 
rhythmical  movement  of  the  horses.  Some  sailed  along 
\\ith  their  heads  low,  others  bounded,  their  heads  high  in 


116  EVELYN  INNES. 

the  air.  While  Owen  watched  Evelyn's  pleasure,  his  face 
expressed  a  cynical  good  humour.  He  was  glad  she  was 
pleased,  and  he  was  flattered  that  he  was  influencing  her. 
No  longer  was  she  wasting  her  life,  the  one  life  which  she 
had  to  live.  He  was  proud  of  his  disciple,  and  he  delighted 
in  her  astonishment,  when,  having  made  sure  that  Armide 
II  had  won,  he  led  her  back  to  the  Pari  Mutuel,  and,  bid- 
ding her  hold  out  her  hands,  saw  that  forty  louis  were 
poured  into  them. 

Then  Evelyn  could  not  believe  that  she  was  in  her 
waking  senses,  and  it  took  some  time  to  explain  to  her  how 
she  had  won  so  much  money;  and  when  she  asked  why  all 
the  poor  people  did  not  come  and  do  likewise,  since  it  was 
so  easy,  Owen  said  that  he  had  had  more  sport  seeing  her 
win  five  and  thirty  louis  than  he  had  when  he  won  the  gold 
cup  at  Ascot.  It  almost  inclined  him  to  go  in  for  racing 
again.  Evelyn  could  not  understand  the  circumstance  and, 
still  explaining  the  odds,  he  told  the  coachman  that  they 
would  not  wait  for  the  last  race.  He  had  tied  her  forty 
louis  into  her  pocket-handkerchief,  and  feeling  .the  weight 
of  the  gold  in  her  hand  she  leaned  back  in  the  victoria, 
lost  in  the  bright  penetrating  happiness  of  that  summer 
evening.  Paris,  graceful  and  indolent — Paris  returning 
through  a  whirl  of  wheels,  through  pleasure-grounds,  green 
swards  and  long  shining  roads — instilled  a  fever  of  desire 
into  the  blood,  and  the  soul  cried  that  life  should  be  made 
wholly  of  such  light  distraction. 

The  wistful  light  seemed  to  breathe  all  vulgarity  from 
the  procession  of  pleasure-seekers  returning  from  the  ra<-<  s. 
An  aspect  of  vision  stole  over  the  scene.  Owen  pointed  to 
the  group  of  pines  by  the  lake's  edge,  to  the  gondola-like 
boat  moving  through  the  pink  stillness;  and  the  cloud  in 
the  water,  he  said,  was  more  beautiful  than  the  cloud  in 
heaven.  He  spoke  of  the  tea-house  on  the  island,  of  the 
shade  of  the  trees,  of  the  lush  grass,  of  the  chatter  of  the 
nursemaids  and  ducks.  He  proposed,  and  she  accepted, 
that  they  should  go  there  to-morrow.  Evelyn  settled  her 
embroidered  gown  over  her  feet  as  the  carriage  swept 
around  the  Arc  de  Triomphe. 

"That  is  our  rose  garden,"  he  said,  pointing  to  Paris, 
which  lay  below  them  glittering  in  the  evening  light. 
"  You  remember  that  I  used  to  read  you  Omar  ?  " 


EVELYN  INNES.  117 

"  Yes,  I  remember.  K~ot  three  days  ago,  yet  it  seems 
far  away." 

"  But  you  do  not  regret — you  would  not  go  back  ?  " 

"  I  could  not  if  I  would." 

"  It  has  been  a  charming  day,  hasn't  it  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  And  it  isn't  over  yet.  I  have  ordered  dinner  at  the 
Cafe  des  Ambassadcurs.  I've  got  a  table  on  the  balcony. 
The  balcony  overlooks  the  garden,  and  the  stage  is  at  the 
end  of  the  garden,  so  we  shall  see  the  performance  as  we 
dine.  The  comic  songs,  the  can-can  dancers  and  the  acro- 
bats will  be  a  change  after  Wagner.  I  hope  you'll  like 
the  dinner." 

lie  took  a  card  from  his  pocket  and  read  the  menu. 

"  There  is  no  place  in  Paris  where  you  get  a  better 
petite  marmite  than  the  Ambassadeurs.  I  have  ordered, 
you  see,  filets  de  1'olaillc,  pointes  (Vasperges.  The  filets  de 
^'olaiUe  are  the  backs  of  the  chickens,  the  tit-bits;  the  rest 
— the  legs  and  the  wings — go  to  make  the  stock;  that  is 
why  the  marmite  is  so  good.  Timbale  de  homard  a  VAmeri- 
caine  is  served  with  a  brown  sauce  garnished  with  rice. 
You  ought  to  find  it  excellent.  If  we  were  in  autumn  I 
should  have  ordered  a  pheasant  Sauvaroff.  A  bird  being 
impossible,  I  allowed  myself  to  be  advised  by  the  head 
waiter.  He  assured  me  they  have  some  very  special  legs 
of  lamb;  they  have  just  received  them  from  Normandy; 
you  will  not  recognise  it  as  the  stringy,  tasteless  thing  that 
in  England  we  know  as  leg  of  lamb.  Souffle  au  paprike — 
this  souffle  is  seasoned  not  with  red  pepper,  which  would 
produce  an  intolerable  thirst,  nor  with  ordinary  pepper, 
which  would  be  arid  and  tasteless,  but  with  an  intermediate 
pepper  which  will  just  give  a  zest  to  the  last  glass  of  cham- 
pagne. There  is  a  parfait — that  comes  before  the  souffle, 
of  course.  I  don't  think  we  can  do  much  better." 


118  EVELYN  INNES. 


XL 

THE  appointment  had  been  made,  and  he  was  coming 
back  at  half-past  three  to  take  her  to  Madame  Savelli,  the 
great  singing  mistress,  and  at  four  her  fate  would  be  de- 
cided. She  would  then  learn  beyond  cavil  or  doubt  if  she 
had,  or  was  likely  to  acquire,  sufficient  voice  for  grand 
opera.  So  much  Madame  Savelli  would  know  for  certain, 
though  she  could  not  predict  success.  So  many  things 
were  required,  and  to  fail  in  one  was  to  fail.  .  .  .  Owen 
expected  Isolde  and  Brunnhilde,  and  she  was  to  achieve 
in  these  parts  something  which  had  not  been  achieved. 
She  was  to  sing  them;  hitherto,  according  to  Owen,  they 
had  been  merely  howled.  Other  triumphs  were  but  pre- 
paratory to  this  ultimate  triumph,  and  if  she  fell  short  of 
his  ideal,  he  would  take  no  further  interest  in  her  voice. 
However  well  she  might  sing  Margaret,  he  would  not  really 
care;  as  for  Lucia  and  Violetta,  it  would  be  his  amiability 
that  would  keep  him  in  the  stalls.  To-day  her  fate  was 
to  be  decided.  If  Madame  Savelli  were  to  say  that  she  had 
no  voice — she  couldn't  very  well  say  that,  but  she  might 
say  that  she  had  only  a  nice  voice,  which,  if  properly 
trained,  could  be  heard  to  advantage  in  a  drawing-room — 
then  what  was  she  to  do?  She  couldn't  live  with  Owen  as 
his  mistress;  in  that  case  she  would  be  no  better  than  the 
women  she  had  seen  at  the  races.  She  grew  suddenly  pale. 
What  was  she  to  do?  The  choice  lay  between  drowning 
herself  and  going  back  to  her  father. 

Only  yesterday  she  had  received  such  a  kind  letter  from 
him,  offering  to  forgive  everything  if  she  would  come  back. 
So  like  her  dear,  unpractical  dad  to  ask  her  to  go  back  and 
suffer  all  the  disgrace  without  having  attained  the  end  for 
which  she  had  left  home.  If,  as  Owen  had  said,  she  went 
back  with  the  finest  soprano  voice  in  Europe,  and  an  en- 
gagement to  sing  at  Covent  Garden  at  a  salary  of  £400 
a  week,  the  world  would  close  its  ears  to  scandal,  the  world 
would  deny  that  any  violation  of  its  rules  had  been  com- 
mitted; but  to  return  after  an  escapade  of  a  week  in  Pari* 
would  be  ruin.  So,  at  Owen's  persuasion,  she  had  written 
a  letter  to  her  father  explaining  why  she  could  not  return. 


EVELYN  INNES.  119 

But  her  inability  to  obey  her  father  did  not  detract  from 
the  fear  which  her  disobedience  caused  her.  She  thought 
of  the  old  man  whom  she  loved  so  well  grieving  his  heart 
out  and  thinking  her,  whom  he  loved  so  dearly,  cruel  and 
ungrateful.  But  what  could  she  do?  Go  back  and  bring 
disgrace  upon  herself  and  upon  her  father?  Ah,  if  she 
had  known  beforehand  the  suffering  she  was  enduring,  she 
did  not  think  she  would  ever  have  gone  away  with  Owen. 
It  was  all  wrong,  very  wrong,  and  she  had  merited  this 
punishment  by  her  own  grievous  fault.  .  .  .  Lady  Duckle 
was  coming  that  evening — the  woman  whom  she  was  going 
to  live  with — an  unfortunate  day  for  her  to  arrive;  if 
Madame  Savelli  thought  that  she,  Evelyn,  had  no  voice  to 
speak  of,  the  secret  could  not  be  kept  from  her.  Lady 
Duckle  would  know  her  for  a  poor  little  fool  who  had  been 
wheedled  from  her  home,  and  on  the  pretext  that  she  was 
to  become  the  greatest  singer  in  Europe.  It  was  all  horrid. 

And  when  Owen  returned  he  found  Evelyn  in  tears. 
But  with  his  scrupulous  tact  he  avoided  any  allusion  to  her 
grief,  and  while  she  bathed  her  eyes  she  thanked  him  in  her 
heart  for  this.  Her  father  would  have  fretted  and  fussed 
and  maddened  her  with  questions,  but  Owen  cheered  her 
with  sanguine  smiles  and  seemed  to  look  forward  to  her 
success  as  a  natural  sequence,  any  interruption  to  which  it 
would  be  idle  to  anticipate;  and  he  cleverly  drew  her 
thoughts  from  doubt  in  her  own  ability  into  consideration 
of  the  music  she  was  going  to  sing.  She  suggested  the 
jewel  song  in  "  Faust,"  or  the  waltz  in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet." 
But  he  was  of  the  opinion  that  she  had  better  sing  the 
music  she  was  in  the  habit  of  singing;  for  choice,  one  of 
Purcell's  songs,  the  "  Epithalamium,"  or  the  song  from  the 
"  Indian  Queen." 

"  Savelli  doesn't  know  the  music ;  it  will  interest  her. 
The  other  things  she  hears  every  day  of  her  life." 

"  But  I  haven't  the  music — I  don't  know  the  accompani- 
ments." 

"  The  music  is  here." 

"  It  is  very  thoughtful  of  you." 

"  Henceforth  it  must  be  my  business  to  be  thought- 
ful." 

They  descended  the  hotel  staircase  very  slowly,  seeing 
themselves  in  the  tall  mirrors  on  the  landings.  The  bright 


120  EVELYN  INNES. 

courtyard  glittered  through  the  glass  verandah;  it  was  full 
of  carriages.  Owen  signed  to  his  coachman.  They  got 
into  the  victoria,  and  a  moment  after  were  passing  through 
the  streets,  turning  in  and  out.  But  not  a  word  did  they 
speak,  for  the  poison  of  doubt  had  entered  into  his,  as  it 
had  into  her,  soul.  He  had  begun  to  ask  himself  if  he  was 
mistaken — if  she  had  really  this  wonderful  voice,  or  if  it 
only  existed  in  his  imagination?  True  it  was  that  every- 
one who  had  heard  her  sing  thought  the  same;  but  the  last 
time  he  had  heard  her,  had  not  her  voice  sounded  a  little 
thin?  He  had  doubts,  too,  about  her  power  of  passionate 
interpretation.  .  .  .  She  had  a  beautiful  voice — there  could 
be  no  doubt  on  that  point — but  a  beautiful  voice  might  be 
heard  to  a  very  great  disadvantage  on  the  stage.  Moreover, 
could  she  sing  florid  music?  Of  course,  the  "Epithala- 
mium  "  she  was  going  to  sing  was  as  florid  as  it  could  be. 
Purcell  had  suited  it  to  his  own  singing.  ...  A  woman 
did  not  always  sing  to  an  orchestra  as  well  as  to  a  single 
instrument.  That  was  only  when  the  singer  was  an  insuffi- 
cient musician.  Evelyn  was  an  excellent  musician.  .  .  . 
If  a  woman  had  the  loveliest  voice,  and  was  as  great  a 
musician  as  Wagner  himself,  it  would  profit  her  nothing 
if  she  had  not  the  strength  to  stand  the  wear  and  tear  of 
rehearsals.  He  looked  at  Evelyn  and  calculated  her  physi- 
cal strength.  Then,  catching  sight  of  her  frightened  face, 
he  forced  himself  to  invent  conversation.  That  was  the 
Madeleine,  a  fine  building,  in  a  way;  and  the  boulevard 
they  had  just  entered  was  the  Boulevard  Malesherbes, 
which  was  called  after  a  celebrated  French  lawyer.  The 
name  Haussmann  recalled  the  Second  Empire,  and  he  ran- 
sacked his  memory  for  anecdotes.  But  soon  his  conversa- 
tion grew  stilted— even  painful.  He  could  continue  it  no 
longer,  and,  taking  her  hand,  he  assured  her  that,  if  she 
did  not  sing  well,  she  should  come  to  Madame  Savelli 
again.  Evelyn's  face  lighted  up,  and  she  said  that  what 
had  frightened  her  was  the  finality  of  the  decision — a  few 
minutes  in  which  she  might  not  be  able  to  sing  at  all. 
Owen  reproved  her.  How  could  she  think  that  he  would 
permit  such  a  barbarism  ?  It  really  did  not  matter  a  brass 
button  whether  she  sang  well  or  ill  on  this  particular  day; 
if  she  did  not  do  herself  justice,  another  appointment 
should  be  made.  He  had  money  enough  to  hire  Madame 


EVELYN  INNES.  121 

Savelli  to  listen  to  her  for  the  next  six  months,  if  it  were 
required. 

He  was  truly  sorry  for  her.  Poor  little  girl!  it  really 
was  a  dreadful  ordeal.  Yet  he  had  never  seen  her  look 
better.  What  a  difference  dressing  her  had  made!  Her 
manner,  too,  had  improved.  That  was  the  influence  of  his 
society.  By  degrees,  he'd  get  rid  of  all  her  absurd  ideas. 
But  he  sorely  wished  that  Madame  Savelli's  verdict  would 
prove  him  right — not  for  his  sake — it  didn't  matter  to  him 
— such  teeth,  such  hands,  such  skin,  such  eyes  and  hair! 
Voice  or  no  voice,  he  had  certainly  got  the  most  charming 
mistress  in  Europe !  But,  if  she  did  happen  to  have  a 
great  voice  it  would  make  matters  so  much  better  for  them. 
He  had  plenty  of  money — twenty  thousand  lying  idle — 
but  it  was  better  that  she  should  earn  money.  It  would 
save  her  reputation  ...  in  every  way  it  would  be  better. 
If  she  had  a  voice,  and  were  a  success,  this  liaison  would 
be  one  of  the  most  successful  things  in  his  life.  If  he 
were  wrong,  they'd  have  to  get  on  as  best  they  could,  but 
he  didn't  think  that  he  could  be  altogether  mistaken. 

The  door  was  opened  by  a  footman  in  livery,  and  they 
ascended  half-a-dozen  steps  into  the  house.  Then,  off  a 
wide  passage,  a  door  was  opened,  and  they  found  them- 
selves in  a  great  saloon  with  polished  oak  floor.  There  was 
hardly  any  furniture — three  or  four  chairs,  some  benches 
against  the  walls  and  a  grand  piano.  The  mantelpiece 
was  covered  with  photographs,  and  there  were  life-sized 
photographs  in  frames  on  the  walls.  Owen  pointed  to  one 
of  a  somewhat  stout  woman  in  evening-dress,  and  he  whis- 
pered an  illustrious  name. 

A  moment  after  madame  entered. 

She  was  of  medium  height,  thin  and  somewhat  flat- 
chested.  Her  hair  was  iron-grey,  and  the  face  was  marked 
with  patches  of  vivid  colouring.  The  mouth  was  a  long, 
determined  line,  and  the  lines  of  the  hips  asserted  them- 
selves beneath  the  black  silk  dress.  She  glanced  quickly 
at  Evelyn  as  she  went  towards  Sir  Owen. 

"  This  is  the  young  lady  of  whom  you  spoke  to  me  ?  " 

"  Yes,  madame,  it  is  she.  Let  me  introduce  you.  Mad- 
ame Savelli — Miss  Evelyn  Innes." 

"  Does  mademoiselle  wish  to  sing  as  a  professional  or  as 
an  amateur  2 " 


122  EVELYN  INNES. 

The  question  was  addressed  at  once  to  Evelyn  and  to 
Owen,  and,  while  Evelyn  hesitated  with  the  French  words, 
Owen  answered — 

"  Mademoiselle  will  be  guided  by  your  advice." 

u  They  all  say  that ;  however,  we  shall  see.  Will  made- 
moiselle sing  to  me  ?  Does  mademoiselle  speak  French  ?  " 

"Yes,  a  little,"  Evelyn  replied,  timidly. 

"  Oh,  very  good.     Has  mademoiselle  studied  music  ?  " 

"  Yes ;  my  father  is  a  musician,  but  he  only  cares  for 
the  very  early  music,  and  I  have  hardly  ever  touched  a 
piano,  but  I  play  the  harpsichord.  .  .  .  My  instrument  is 
the  viola  da  gamba." 

"  The  harpsichord  and  the  viola  da  gamba  I  That  is 
very  interesting,  but " — and  Madame  Savelli  laughed  good- 
naturedly — "  unfortunately  we  have  no  harpsichord  here, 
nor  yet  a  spinet;  only  the  humble  piano." 

"  Miss  Innes  will  be  quite  satisfied  with  your  piano, 
Madame  Savelli." 

"  Now,  Sir  Owen,  I  will  not  have  you  get  cross  with 
me.  I  must  always  have  my  little  pleasantry.  Does  he  get 
cross  with  you  like  that,  Miss  Innes  ? " 

"  I  didn't  get  cross  with  you,  Madame  Savelli." 

"  You  wanted  to,  but  I  wrould  not  let  you — and  because 
I  regretted  I  had  not  a  harpsichord,  only  a  humble  piano! 
Mademoiselle  knows,  I  suppose,  all  the  church  songs.  I 
only  know  operas.  .  .  .  You  see,  Sir  Owen,  you  cannot 
silence  me;  I  will  have  my  little  pleasantry.  I  only  know 
opera,  and  have  nothing  but  the  humble  piano.  But,  jok- 
ing apart,  mademoiselle  wants  to  study  serious  opera." 

"  Yes ;  mademoiselle  intends  to  study  for  the  stage,  not 
for  the  church." 

"  Then  I  will  teach  her." 

"  You  have  three  classes  here.  Mademoiselle  would 
like  to  go  into  the  opera  class." 

"  In  the  opera  class !  How  you  do  go  on,  Sir  Owen ! 
If  mademoiselle  can  go  into  the  opera  class  next  year,  I 
shall  be  more  than  satisfied,  astonished." 

"  Perhaps  you'll  be  able  to  say  better  if  mademoiselle 
will  be  able  to  go  into  the  opera  class  when  you  have  heard 
her  sing." 

"  But  I  know,  my  dear  Sir  Owen,  that  is  impossible. 
You  don't  believe  me.  Well,  I  am  prepared  to  be  sur- 


EVELYN  INNES.  123 

prised.  It  matters  not  to  me.  Mademoiselle  can  go  into 
the  opera  class  in  three  months  if  she  is  sufficiently  ad- 
vanced. Will  mademoiselle  sing  to  me?  Are  these  her 
songs  ?  "  Madame  Savelli  took  the  music  out  of  Sir  Owen's 
hands.  "  I  can  see  that  this  music  would  sound  better  on 
the  harpsichord  or  the  spinet.  .  .  .  Now,  Sir  Owen,  I  see 
you  are  getting  angry  again." 

"I'm  not  angry,  Madame  Savelli — no  one  could  be  an- 
gry with  you — only  mademoiselle  is  rather  nervous." 

"  Then  perhaps  my  pleasantry  was  inexpedient.  Let 
me  see — this  is  it,  isn't  it  ? "  she  said,  running  her  fingers 
through  the  first  bars.  ..."  But  perhaps  you  would  like 
to  accompany  mademoiselle." 

"  Which  would  you  like,  Evelyn  ?  " 

"You,  dear;  I  should  be  too  nervous  with  Madame 
Savelli." 

Owen  explained,  and  madame  gave  him  her  place  at 
the  piano  with  alacrity,  and  took  a  seat  far  away  by  the 
fireplace.  Evelyn  sang  Purcell's  beautiful  wedding  song, 
full  of  roulades,  grave  pauses  and  long-sustained  notes,  and 
when  she  had  finished  Owen  signed  to  madame  not  to 
speak.  Now,  the  song  from  the  *  Indian  Queen.'  You 
sang  capitally,"  he  whispered  to  Evelyn. 

And,  thus  encouraged,  she  poured  all  her  soul  and  all 
the  pure  melody  of  her  voice  into  this  music,  at  once  re- 
ligious and  voluptuous,  seemingly  the  rapture  of  a  nun 
that  remembrance  has  overtaken  and  for  the  moment  over- 
powered. When  she  had  done,  Madame  Savelli  jumped 
from  her  chair,  and  seizing  her  by  both  hands  said — 

"  If  you  stop  with  me  for  a  year,  I'll  make  something 
wonderful  of  you." 

Then  without  another  word  she  ran  out  of  the  room, 
leaving  the  door  open  behind  her,  and  a  few  moments  after 
they  heard  her  calling  on  the  stairs  to  her  husband. 

"  Come  down  at  once ;  come  down,  I've  found  a  star." 

"  Then  she  thinks  I've  a  good  voice  ? " 

"  I  should  think  so  indeed.  She  won't  get  over  the  start 
you've  given  her  for  the  next  six  months." 

"  Are  you  sure,  Owen  ?  Are  you  sure  she's  not  laugh- 
ing at  us  ? " 

"  Laughing  at  us  ?  She's  calling  for  her  husband  to 
come  down.  She's  shouting  to  him  that  she's  found  a  star." 


124  EVELYN  INNES, 

Then  the  joy  that  rose  up  in  Evelyn's  heart  blinded  her 
eyes  so  that  she  could  not  see,  and  she  seemed  to  lose  sense 
of  what  was  happening.  It  was  as  if  she  were  going  to 
swoon. 

"  I  have  told  her,"  Madame  Savelli  said  to  her  husband, 
who  followed  her  into  the  room,  "that,  if  she  will  remain 
a  year  with  me,  I'll  make  something  wonderful  of  her. 
And  you  will  stay  with  me,  my  dear.  .  .  ." 

Owen  thought  that  this  was  the  moment  to  mention  the 
fact  that  Evelyn  was  the  daughter  of  the  famous  Madame 
Innes. 

Monsieur  Savelli  raised  his  bushy  eyebrows. 

"  I  knew  your  mother,  mademoiselle.  If  you  have  a 
voice  like  hers " 

"In  a  year,  if  she  will  remain  with  me,  she  will  have 
twice  the  voice  her  mother  had.  Mademoiselle  must  go 
into  the  opera  class  at  once." 

"  I  thought  you  said  that  such  a  thing  could  not  be ; 
.that  no  pupil  of  yours  had  ever  gone  straight  into  the  opera 
class?" 

Madame  Savelli's  grey  eyes  laughed. 

"  Ah !  I  was  mistaken.  ...  I  had  forgotten  that  all  the 
other  classes  are  full.  There  is  no  room  for  Miss  Innes  in 
the  other  classes.  It  is  against  all  precedence;  it  will 
create  much  jealousy,  but  it  can't  be  helped.  She  must  go 
straight  into  the  opera  class.  When  will  mademoiselle 
begin?  The  sooner  the  better." 

"  Next  Monday.     Will  that  be  soon  enough  ?  " 

"  On  Monday  I'll  begin  to  teach  her  the  role  of  Mar- 
guerite. Such  a  thing  was  never  heard  of;  but  then  made- 
moiselle's voice  is  one  such  as  one  never  hears." 

Turning  to  her  husband,  she  said — 

"  You  see  my  husband  is  looking  at  me.  Yes,  you  arc 
looking  at  me.  You  think  I  have  gone  mad,  but  he'll  not 
think  I've  gone  mad  when  he  hears  mademoiselle  sing. 
Will  mademoiselle  be  so  kind  ?  " 

Evelyn  felt  she  could  not  sing  again,  and,  turning  sud- 
denly away,  she  walked  to  the  window  and  watched  the 
cabs  going  by.  She  heard  Owen  ask  Madame  and  Mon- 
sieur Savelli  to  excuse  her.  He  s:iid  I  lint  iiiiidaiiic's  pr.iisr 
had  proved  too  much  for  her;  that  her  nerves  had  given 
way.  Then  he  came  over  and  spoke  to  her  gently.  She 


EVELYN  INNES.  125 

looked  at  him  through  her  tears;  but  she  could  not  trust 
herself  to  speak,  nor  yet  to  walk  across  the  room  and  bid 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Savelli  good-bye.  She  felt  she 
must  die  of  shame  or  happiness,  and  plucked  at  Owen's 
sleeve.  She  was  glad  to  get  out  of  that  room;  and  the 
moments  seemed  like  years.  They  could  not  speak  in  the 
glaring  of  the  street.  But  fortunately  their  way  was 
through  the  park,  and  when  they  passed  under  the  shade 
of  some  overhanging  boughs,  she  looked  at  him. 

"  Well,  little  girl,  what  do  you  think  ?  Everything  is 
all  right  now.  It  happened  even  better  than  I  expected." 

She  wiped  away  her  tears. 

"  How  foolish  I  am  to  cry  like  this !  But  I  could  not 
bear  it;  my  nerves  gave  way.  It  was  so  sudden.  I'm 
afraid  those  people  will  think  me  a  little  fool.  But  you 
don't  know,  Owen,  what  I  have  suffered  these  last  few 
days.  I  don't  want  to  worry  you,  but  there  were  times 
when  I  thought  I  couldn't  stand  it  any  longer.  I  thought 
that  God  might  punish  me  by  taking  my  voice  from  me. 
Just  fancy  if  I  had  not  been  able  to  sing  at  all!  It  would 
have  made  you  look  a  fool.  You  would  have  hated  me  for 
that;  but  now,  even  if  I  should  lose  my  voice  between 
this  and  next  Monday.  .  .  .  Did  I  sing  well,  Owen?  Did 
I  sing  as  well  as  ever  you  heard  me  sing  ? " 

"  I've  heard  you  sing  better,  but  you  sang  well  enough 
to  convince  Savelli  that  you'll  have  the  finest  voice  in 
Europe  by  this  time  next  year.  That's  good  enough  for 
you,  isn't  it  ?  You  don't  want  any  more,  do  you  ?  " 

"  No,  no,  half  that  would  do,  half  that ;  I  only  want  to 
know  that  it  is  all  true."  Tears  again  rose  to  her  eyes. 
"  I  mean,"  she  said,  laughing,  "  that  I  want  to  know  that  I 
am  sitting  by  you  in  the  carriage;  that  Madame  Savelli 
has  heard  me  sing;  that  she  said  that  I  should  be  a  great 
singer.  Did  she  say  that  ?  " 

"  Yes,  she  said  you  would  be  a  great  singer." 

"  Then  why  does  it  not  seem  true  ?  But  nothing  seems 
true,  not  even  Paris.  It  all  seems  like  a  dazzling,  scattered 
dream,  like  spots  of  light,  and  every  moment  I  fear  that  it 
will  pass  away,  and  that  I  shall  wake  up  and  find  myself  in 
Dulwich;  that  I  shall  see  my  viola  da  gamba  standing  in 
the  corner;  that  a  rap  at  the  front  door  will  tell  me  that  a 
pupil  has  come  for  a  lesson." 


126  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  Do  you  remember  the  lessons  that  you  gave  me  on  the 
viola  da  gamba  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him  beseechingly. 

"  Then  it  is  true.  I  suppose  it  is  true,  but  I  wish  I 
could  feel  this  life  to  be  true." 

She  looked  up  and  saw  the  clouds  moving  across  the 
sky;  she  looked  down  and  saw  the  people  passing  along  the 
streets. 

"  In  a  few  days,  in  a  few  weeks,  this  life  will  seem  quite 
real.  But,  if  you  cannot  bear  the  present,  how  will  you 
bear  the  success  that  is  to  come  ?  " 

"  When  I  was  a  tiny  girl,  the  other  girls  used  to  say, 
'  Evey,  dear,  do  make  that  funny  noise  in  your  throat,' 
and  that  was  my  trill.  But  since  mother's  death  every- 
thing went  wrong;  it  seemed  that  I  could  never  get  out  of 
Dulwich.  I  never  should  have  if  it  had  not  been  for  you. 
I  had  ceased  to  believe  that  I  had  a  voice." 

"  In  that  throat  there  are  thousands  of  pounds." 

Evelyn  put  her  hand  to  her  throat  to  assure  herself  that 
it  was  still  on  her  shoulders. 

"  I  wonder,  I  wonder.  To  think  that  in  a  year — in  a 
year  and  a  half — I  shall  be  singing  on  the  stage!  They 
will  throw  me  bouquets,  I  suppose  ? " 

"Oh,  yes,  you  need  have  no  fear  about  that;  this  park 
would  not  suffice  to  grow  all  the  flowers  that  will  be  thrown 
at  your  feet." 

"  It  seems  impossible  that  I — poor,  miserable  I — should 
be  moving  towards  such  splendour.  I  wonder  if  I  shall 
ever  get  there,  and,  if  I  do  get  there,  if  I  shall  be  able  to 
live  through  it.  I  cannot  yet  see  myself  the  great  singer 
you  describe.  Yet  I  suppose  it  is  all  quite  certain." 

"  Quite  certain." 

"  Then  why  can't  I  imagine  it  ?  " 

"  We  cannot  imagine  ourselves  in  other  than  our  pres- 
ent circumstances;  the  most  commonplace  future  is  as  un- 
imaginable as  the  most  extravagant." 

"  I  suppose  that  is  so." 

The  carriage  stopped  at  the  Continental,  and  he  asked 
her  what  she  would  like  to  do.  It  was  just  five. 

"  Come  and  have  a  cup  of  tea  in  the  Rue  Cambon." 

She  consented,  and,  after  tea,  he  said,  standing  with  one 
foot  on  the  carriage  step — 


EVELYN  INNES.  127 

"  If  you'll  allow  me  to  advise  you,  you  will  go  for  a 
drive  in  the  Bois  by  yourself.  I  want  to  see  some  pic- 
tures." 

"  May  I  not  come  ?  " 

"  Certainly,  if  you  like,  but  I  don't  think  you  could  give 
your  attention  to  pictures;  you're  thinking  of  yourself,  and 
yon  want  to  be  alone  with  yourself — nothing  else  would 
interest  you." 

A  pretty  flush  of  shame  came  into  her  cheeks.  lie  had 
seen  to  the  bottom  of  her  heart,  and  discovered  that  of 
which  she  herself  was  not  aware.  Eat,  now  that  he  had 
told  her,  she  knew  that  she  did  want  to  be  alone — not 
alone  in  a  room,  but  alone  among  a  great  number  of  people. 
A  drive  in  the  Bois  would  be  a  truly  delicious  indulgence 
of  her  egotism.  The  Champs  Elysccs  floated  about  her 
happiness,  the  Avenue  du  Bois  do  Boulogne  seemed  to 
stretch  out  and  to  lead  to  the  theatre  of  her  glory;  and, 
looking  at  the  lake,  its  groups  of  pines,  its  gondola-like 
boats,  she  recalled,  and  with  little  thrills  of  pleasure,  the 
exact  words  that  madame  had  used — 

"  If  you  will  stay  a  year  with  me,  I'll  make  something 
wonderful  of  you."  "  Was  there  ever  such  happiness  ?  Can 
it  be  true?  Then  I  am  wonderful — perhaps  the  most  won- 
derful person  here.  Those  women,  however  haughty  they 
may  look,  what  are  they  to  me?  I  am  wonderful.  With 
not  one  would  I  change  places,  for  I  am  going  to  be  some- 
thing wonderful."  And  the  word  sang  sweeter  in  her  ears 
than  the  violins  in  "  Lohengrin."  ..."  Owen  loves  me. 
I  have  the  nicest  lover  in  the  world.  All  this  good  for- 
tune has  happened  to  me.  Oh,  to  me!  If  father  could 
only  know.  But  Owen  thinks  that  will  be  all  right.  Fa- 
ther will  forgive  me  when  I  come  back  the  wonderful  singer 
that  I  am — that  I  shall  be.  ...  If  anyone  could  hear  me, 
they  would  think  I  was  mad.  I  can't  help  it.  ...  She'll 
make  something  wonderful  of  me,  and  father  will  forgive 
me  everything.  We  always  loved  each  other.  We've  al- 
ways been  pals,  dear  dad.  Oh,  how  1  wish  he  had  heard 
Madame  Savelli  say,  '  If  you  will  stop  with  me  a  year, 
I'll  make  something  wonderful  of  you ! '  I  will  write  to 
him  ...  it  will  cheer  him  up." 

Then,  seeing  the  poplars  that  lined  the  avenue,  beauti- 
ful and  tall  in  the  evening,  she  thought  of  Owen.  He  had 
9 


128  EVELYN  INNES. 

said  they  were  the  trees  of  the  evening.  She  had  not  un- 
derstood, and  he  had  explained  that  we  only  see  poplars 
in  the  sunset ;  they  appear  with  the  bats  and  the  first  stars. 

"  How  clever  he  is !  I  wonder  what  Madame  Savelli 
said  to  her  husband  about  my  voice.  She  meant  all  she 
said;  there  can  be  no  doubt  about  that." 

Catching  sight  of  some  passing  faces,  Evelyn  thought 
how,  in  two  little  years,  at  this  very  hour,  the  same  people 
would  be  returning  from  the  Bois  to  hear  her  sing — what? 
Elsa?  Elizabeth?  Margaret?  She  imagined  herself  in 
these  parts,  and  sang  fragments  of  the  music  as  it  floated 
into  her  mind.  She  was  impelled  to  extravagance.  She 
would  have  liked  to  stand  up  in  her  carriage  and  sing 
aloud,  nothing  seemed  to  matter,  until  she  remembered 
that  she  must  not  make  a  fool  of  herself  before  Lady 
Duckle.  And  that  she  might  walk  the  fever  out  of  her 
blood,  she  called  to  the  coachman  to  stop,  and  she  walked 
down  the  Champs  Elysecs  rapidly,  not  pausing  to  take 
breath  till  she  reached  the  Place  de  la  Concorde;  and  she 
almost  ran  the  rest  of  the  way,  so  that  she  might  not  be 
late  for  dinner.  When  she  entered  the  hotel,  she  came  sud- 
denly upon  Owen  on  the  verandah.  He  was  sitting  there 
engaged  in  conversation  with  an  elderly  woman — a  woman 
of  about  fifty,  who,  catching  sight  of  her,  whispered  some- 
thing to  him. 

"  Evelyn.  .  .  .  This  is  Lady  Duckle." 

"Sir  Owen  has  been  telling  me,  Miss  Innes,  what 
Madame  Savelli  said  about  your  voice.  I  do  not  know 
how  to  congratulate  you.  I  suppose  such  a  thing  has  not 
happened  before." 

And  her  small,  grey  eyes  gazed  in  envious  wonderment, 
as  if  seeking  to  understand  how  such  extraordinary  good 
fortune  should  have  befallen  the  tall,  fair  girl  who  stood 
blushing  and  embarrassed  in  her  happiness.  Owen  drew 
a  chair  forward. 

"  Sit  down,  Evelyn,  you  look  tired." 

"  No,  I'm  not  tired  .  .  .  but  I  walked  from  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe." 

"  Walked  !     Why  did  you  walk  ?  " 

Evelyn  did  not  answer,  and  Lady  Duckle  said — 

"  Sir  Owen  tells  me  that,  you'll  surely  succeed  in  sing- 
ing Wagner — that  I  shall  be  converted." 


EVELYN  IKNES.  120 

"Lady  Duckle  is  a  heretic." 

"  No,  my  dear  Owen,  I'm  not  a  heretic,  for  I  recognise 
the  greatness  of  the  music,  and  I  could  hear  it  with  pleas- 
ure if  it  were  confined  to  the  orchestra,  but  I  can  find  no 
pleasure  in  listening  to  a  voice  trying  to  accompany  a  hun- 
dred instruments.  I  heard  '  Lohengrin '  last  season.  I 
was  in  Mrs.  Ayre's  box — a  charming  woman — her  husband 
is  an  American,  but  he  never  comes  to  London.  I  pre- 
sented her  at  the  last  Drawing-Room.  She  had  a  supper 
party  afterwards,  and  when  she  asked  me  what  I'd  have 
to  eat,  I  said,  '  Nothing  with  wings.'  .  .  .  Oh,  that  swan !  " 

Her  grey  hair  was  drawn  up  and  elaborately  arranged, 
and  Evelyn  noticed  three  diamond  rings  and  an  emerald 
ring  on  her  fat,  white  fingers.  There  had  been  moments, 
she  said,  when  she  had  thought  the  people  on  the  stage 
were  making  fun  of  them — "  such  booing !  " — they  had  all 
shouted  themselves  hoarse — such  wandering  from  key 
to  key. 

"  Hoping,  I  suppose,  that  in  the  end  they'd  hit  off  the 
right  ones.  And  that  trick  of  going  up  in  fifths.  And 
then  they  go  up  in  fifths  on  the  half  notes.  I  said  if  they 
do  that  again,  I'll  leave  the  theatre." 

Evelyn  could  see  that  Owen  liked  Lady  Duckle,  and 
her  conversation,  which  at  first  might  have  seemed  ex- 
travagant and  a  little  foolish,  was  illuminated  with  knowl- 
edge and  a  vague  sense  of  humour  which  was  captivating. 
Her  story  of  how  she  had  met  Rossini  in  her  early  youth, 
and  the  praise  he  had  bestowed  on  her  voice,  and  his  in- 
tention of  writing  an  opera  for  her,  seemed  fanciful  enough, 
but  every  now  and  then  some  slight  detail  inspired  the  sus- 
picion that  there  was  perhaps  more  truth  in  what  she  was 
saying  than  appeared  at  first  hearing. 

"  Why  did  he  not  write  the  opera,  Olive  ?  " 

"  It  was  just  as  he  was  ill,  when  he  lived  in  Rue  Mon- 
sieur. And  he  said  he  was  afraid  he  was  not  equal  to 
writing  down  so  many  notes.  Poor  old  man !  I  can  still 
see  him  sitting  in  his  arm-chair." 

She  seemed  to  have  been  on  terms  of  friendship  with 
the  most  celebrated  men  of  the  time.  Her  little  book 
entitled  Souvenirs  of  Some  Great  Composers  was  alluded 
to,  and  Owen  mentioned  that  at  that  time  she  was  the 
great  Parisian  beauty. 


130  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  But  instead  of  going  on  the  stage,  I  married  Lord 
Buckle." 

And  this  early  mistake  she  seemed  to  consider  as  suffi- 
cient explanation  for  all  subsequent  misfortunes.  Evelyn 
wondered  what  these  might  be,  and  Owen  said — 

"  The  most  celebrated  singers  are  glad  to  sing  at  Lady 
Duckle'a  afternoons;  no  reputation  is  considered  complete 
till  it  has  received  her  sanction." 

"  That  is  going  too  far,  Owen ;  but  it  is  true  that 
nearly  all  the  great  singers  have  been  heard  at  my  house." 

Owen  begged  Evelyn  to  get  ready  for  dinner,  and  as 
she  stood  waiting  for  the  lift,  she  saw  him  resume  con- 
fidential conversation  with  Lady  Duckle.  They  were,  she 
knew,  making  preparations  for  her  future  life,  and  this 
was  the  woman  she  was  going  to  live  with  for  the  next 
few  years !  The  thought  gave  her  pause.  She  dried  her 
hands  and  hastened  downstairs.  They  were  still  talking 
in  the  verandah  just  as  she  had  left  them.  Owen  signed 
to  the  coachman  and  told  him  to  drive  to  Du  rand's.  They 
were  dining  in  a  private  room,  and  during  dinner  the  con- 
versation constantly  harked  back  to  the  success  that  Evelyn 
had  achieved  that  afternoon.  Owen  told  the  story  in  well- 
turned  sentences.  His  eyes  were  generally  fixed  on  Lady 
Duckle,  and  Evelyn  sat  listening  and  feeling,  as  O\veu 
intended  she  should  feel,  like  the  heroine  of  a  fairy  tale. 
She  laughed  nervously  when,  imitating  Madame  Savelli's 
accent,  he  described  how  she  had  said,  "  If  you'll  stop  with 
me  for  a  year,  I'll  make  something  wonderful  of  you." 
Lady  Duckle  leaned  across  the  table,  glancing  from  time 
to  time  at  Evelyn,  as  if  to  assure  herself  that  she  was  still 
in  the  presence  of  this  extraordinary  person,  and  mur- 
mured something  about  having  the  honour  of  assisting  at 
what  she  was  sure  would  be  a  great  career. 

Owen  noticed  that  Evelyn  seemed  preoccupied,  and  did 
not  respond  very  eagerly  to  Lady  Duckle's  advances.  He 
wondered  if  she  suspected  him  of  having  been  Lady 
Duckle's  lover.  .  .  .  Evelyn  was  thinking  entirely  of  Lady 
Duckle  herself,  trying  to  divine  the  real  woman  that  was 
behind  all  this  talk  of  great  men  and  social  notabilities. 
One  phrase  let  drop  seemed  to  let  in  some  light  on  the 
mystery.  Talking  of  her,  Lady  Duckle  said  that  it  was 
only  necessary  to  know  what  road  we  wanted  to  walk  in 


EVELYN  INNES.  131 

to  succeed,  and  instantly  Lady  Duckle  appeared  to  her  as 
one  who  had  never  selected  a  road.  She  seemed  to  have 
walked  a  little  way  on  all  roads,  and  her  face  expressed 
a  life  of  many  wanderings,  straying  from  place  to  place. 
There  was  nothing,  as  she  said,  worth  doing  that  she  had 
not  done,  but  she  had  clearly  accomplished  nothing.  As 
she  watched  her  she  feared,  though  she  could  not  say  what 
she  feared.  At  bottom  it  was  a  suspicion  of  the  deteriorat- 
ing influence  that  Lady  Duckle  would  exercise,  must  exer- 
cise, upon  her — for  were  they  not  going  to  live  together 
for  years?  And  this  companionship  would  be  necessarily 
based  on  subterfuge  and  deceit.  She  would  have  to  talk 
to  her  of  her  friendship  for  Owen.  She  could  never  speak 
of  Owen  to  Lady  Duckle  as  her  lover.  But  as  Evelyn  lis- 
tened to  this  pleasant,  garrulous  woman  talking,  and  talking 
very  well,  about  music  and  literature,  she  could  not  but 
feel  that  she  liked  her,  and  that  her  easy  humour  and  want 
of  principle  would  make  life  comfortable  and  careless.  She 
\viis  not  a  saint;  she  could  not  expect  a  saint  to  chaperon 
her;  nor  did  she  want  a  saint.  At  that  moment  her  spirits 
rose.  She  wanted  Owen,  and  she  loved  him  the  more  for 
the  tact  he  had  shown  in  finding  Lady  Duckle  for  her. 
She  accepted  the  good  lady's  faults  with  reckless  enthusi- 
asm, and  when  they  got  back  to  the  hotel  she  took  the 
first  occasion  to  whisper  that  she  liked  Lady  Duckle  and 
was  sure  they'd  get  on  very  well  together. 

"  Owen,  dear,  I'm  so  happy,  I  don't  know  what  to  do 
with  myself.     I  did  enjoy  my  drive  to  the  Bois.     I  never 
was  so  happy,   and   I  don't  seem   to  be  enjoying  myself 
enough ;  I  should  like  to  sit  up  all  night  to  think  of  it." 
"  There's  no  reason  why  you  shouldn't." 
"  Only  I  should  feel  tired  in  the  morning." 
"  Your  eyes  are  shining  like  stars.     It  is  worth  while 
taking  trouble  to  make  you  happy.     You  do  enjoy  it  so. 
.  .  .  We'll  go   upstairs   now.     We   can't   talk   here,   Lady 
Duckle  is  coming  back." 


132  EVELYN  INNES. 


XII. 

As  she  lay  between  sleeping  and  waking,  she  strove  to 
grasp  the  haunting,  fugitive  idea,  but  shadows  of  bleep 
fell,  and  in  her  dream  there  appeared  two  Tristans,  a  fair 
and  a  dark.  When  the  shadows  \vere  lifted  and  she  thought 
with  an  awakening  brain,  she  smiled  at  the  absurdity,  and, 
striving  to  get  close  to  her  idea,  to  grip  it  about  its  very 
loins,  she  asked  herself  how  much  of  her  own  life  she  could 
express  in  the  part,  for  she  always  acted  one  side  of  her 
character.  Her  pious  girlhood  found  expression  in  the 
Elizabeth,  and  what  she  termed  the  other  side  of  her  char- 
acter she  was  going  to  put  on  the  stage  in  the  character  of 
Isolde.  Again  sleep  thickened,  and  she  found  it  impossible 
to  follow  her  idea.  It  eluded  her;  she  could  not  grasp  it. 
It  turned  to  a  dream,  a  dream  which  she  could  not  under- 
stand even  while  she  dreamed  it.  But  as  she  awaked,  she 
uttered  a  cry.  It  happened  to  be  the  note  she  had  to  sing 
when  the  curtain  goes  up  and  Isolde  lies  on  the  couch  yearn- 
ing for  Tristan.  All  other  actresses  had  striven  to  portray 
an  Irish  princess,  or  what  they  believed  an  Irish  princess 
might  be.  But  she  cared  nothing  for  the  Irish  princess, 
and  a  great  deal  for  the  distress  of  a  woman  sick  with  love. 

Her  power  of  recalling  her  sensations  was  so  intense, 
that  in  her  warm  bed  she  lived  again  the  long,  aching  even- 
ings of  the  long  winter  in  Dulwich,  before  she  went  away 
with  Owen.  She  saw  again  the  spring  twilight  in  the  scrap 
of  black  garden,  where  she  used  to  stand  watching  the  stars. 
She  remembered  the  dread  craving  to  worship  them,  the 
anguish  of  remorse  and  fear  on  her  bed,  her  visions  of  di-- 
tant  countries  and  the  gleam  of  eyes  which  looked  at  her 
through  the  dead  of  night.  How  miserable  she  had  been 
in  that  time — in  those  months.  She  had  wanted  to  sing, 
and  she  could  not,  and  she  had  wanted — she  had  not  known 
what  was  the  matter  with  her.  That  feeling  (how  well  she 
remembered  it!)  as  if  she  wanted  to  go  mad!  And  all 
those  lightnesses  of  the  brain  she  could  introduce  in  the 
opening  scene — the  very  opening  cry  was  one  of  them. 
And  with  these  two  themes  she  thought  she  could  create  an 
Isolde  more  intense  than  the  Isolde  of  the  fat  women  whom 


EVELYN  1NNES.  133 

she  had  seen  walking  about  the  stage,  lifting  their  arms  and 
trying  to  look  like  sculpture. 

No  one  whom  she  had  seen  had  attempted  to  differen- 
tiate between  Isolde  before  she  drinks  and  after  she  has 
drunk  the  love  potion,  and,  to  avoid  this  mistake,  she  felt 
that  she  would  only  have  to  be  true  to  herself.  After  the 
love  potion  had  been  drunk,  the  moment  of  her  life  to  put 
on  the  stage  was  its  moment  of  highest  exaltation.  Which 
was  that?  There  were  so  many,  she  smiled  in  her  doze. 
Perhaps  the  most  wonderful  day  of  her  life  was  the  day 
Madame  Savelli  had  said,  "  If  you'll  stay  with  me  for  a 
year,  I'll  make  something  wonderful  of  you."  She  recalled 
the  drive  in  the  Bois,  and  she  saw  again  the  greensward,  the 
poplars,  and  the  stream  of  carriages.  She  had  hardly  been 
uble  to  resist  springing  up  in  the  carriage  and  singing  to 
the  people;  she  had  wanted  to  tell  them  what  Madame 
Savelli  had  said.  She  had  wished  to  cry  to  them,  "  In  two 
years  all  you  people  will  be  going  to  the  opera  to  hear  me." 
What  had  stopped  her  was  the  dread  that  it  might  not  hap- 
pen. But  it  had  happened!  That  was  the  evening  she 
had  met  Olive.  She  could  see  the  exact  spot.  Although 
Olive  had  only  just  arrived,  she  had  been  up  to  her  room 
and  put  on  a  pair  of  slippers.  They  had  dined  at  a  cafe, 
and  all  through  dinner  she  had  longed  to  be  alone  with 
Owen.  How  she  had  flung  herself  into  his  arms!  That 
was  the  moment  of  her  life  to  put  upon  the  stage  when  she 
and  Tristan  looked  at  each  other  after  drinking  the  love 
potion. 

In  the  second  act  Tristan  lives  through  her.  She  is  the 
will  to  live;  and  if  she  ultimately  consents  to  follow  him 
into  the  shadowy  land,  it  is  for  love  of  him.  But  of  his 
desire  for  death  she  understands  nothing;  all  through  the 
duet  it  is  she  who  desires  to  quench  this  desire  with  kisses. 
That  was  her  conception  of  women's  mission,  and  that  was 
her  own  life  with  Owen ;  it  was  her  love  that  compelled  him 
to  live  down  his  despondencies.  So  her  Isolde  would  have  an 
intense  and  a  personal  life  that  no  Isolde  had  had  before. 
And  in  holding  up  her  own  soul  to  view,  she  would  hold  up 
the  universal  soul,  and  people  would  be  afraid  to  turn  their 
heads  lest  they  should  catch  each  other's  eyes.  But  was  not 
a  portrayal  of  passion  such  as  she  intended  very  sinful? 
It  could  not  fail  to  suggest  sinful  thoughts.  .  .  .  She  could 


134:  EVELYN  INNES. 

not  help  what  folk  thought — that  was  their  affair.  She  had 
turned  her  back  upon  all  such  scruples,  and  this  last  one  she 
contemptuously  picked  up  and  tossed  aside  like  a  briar. 

Her  eyes  opened  and  she  gazed  sleepily  into  the  twilight 
of  mauve  curtains,  and  dreaded  her  maid's  knock.  "  It 
must  be  nearly  eight,"  she  thought,  and  she  strove  to  pick 
up  the  thread  of  her  lost  thoughts.  But  a  sharp  rap  at  her 
door  awakened  her,  and  a  tall,  spare  figure  crossed  the  room. 
As  the  maid  was  about  to  draw  the  curtains,  Evelyn  cried 
to  her — 

"  Oh,  wait  a  moment,  Merat.  .  .  .  I'm  so  tired.  I 
didn't  get  to  bed  till  two  o'clock." 

"  Mademoiselle  forgets  that  she  told  me  to  awaken  her 
very  early.  Mademoiselle  said  she  wanted  to  go  for  a  long 
drive  to  the  other  end  of  London  before  she  went  to  re- 
hearsal." 

Merat's  logic  seemed  a  little  severe  for  eight  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  and  Evelyn  believed  that  her  conception  of 
Isolde  had  suffered  from  the  interruption. 

"  Then  I  am  not  to  draw  the  curtains  ?  Mademoiselle 
will  sleep  a  little  longer.  I  will  return  when  it  is  time  for 
mademoiselle  to  go  to  rehearsal." 

"  Did  you  say  it  was  half-past  eight,  Merat  ?  " 

"  Yes,  mademoiselle.  The  coachman  is  not  quite  sure 
of  the  way,  and  will  have  to  ask  it.  This  will  delay 
him." 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  know.  .  .  .  But  I  must  sleep  a  little  longer." 

"  Then  mademoiselle  will  not  get  up.  I  will  take 
mademoiselle's  chocolate  away." 

"  No,  I'll  have  my  chocolate,"  Evelyn  said,  rousing  her- 
self. "  Merat,  you  are  very  insistent." 

"  What  is  one  to  do  ?  Mademoiselle  specially  ordered 
me  to  wake  her.  .  .  .  Mademoiselle  said  that — 

"  I  know  what  I  said.  I'll  see  how  I  feel  when  I  have 
had  my  chocolate.  The  coachman  had  better  get  a  m:ip 
and  look  out  the  way  upon  it." 

She  lay  back  on  the  pillow  and  regretted  she  had  come 
to  England.  There  was  no  reason  why  she  should  not 
have  thrown  over  this  engagement.  It  wouldn't  have  been 
the  first.  Owen  had  always  told  her  that  money  ought 
never  to  tempt  her  to  do  ;ni.vlliing  she  didn't  like.  He  h:id 
persuaded  her  to  accept  this  engagement,  though  he  knew 


EVELYN  INNES.  135 

that  she  did  not  want  to  sing  in  London.  How  often  be- 
fore had  she  not  refused,  and  with  his  approbation?  But 
then  his  pleasure  was  involved  in  the  refusal  or  the  accep- 
tation of  the  engagement.  He  did  not  mind  her  throwing 
over  a  valuable  offer  to  sing  if  he  wanted  her  to  go  yachting 
with  him.  Men  were  so  selfish.  She  smiled,  for  she  knew 
she  was  acting  a  little  comedy  with  herself.  "  But,  quite 
seriously,  I  am  annoyed  with  Owen.  The  London  engage- 
ment— no,  of  course,  I  could  not  go  on  refusing  to  sing  in 
London."  She  was  annoyed  with  him  because  he  had  dis- 
suaded her  from  doing  what  her  instinct  had  told  her  was 
the  right  thing  to  do.  She  had  wished  to  go  to  her  father 
the  moment  she  set  foot  in  England,  and  beg  his  forgive- 
ness. When  they  had  arrived  at  Victoria,  she  had  said 
that  she  would  like  to  take  the  train  to  Dulwich.  There 
happened  to  be  one  waiting.  But  they  had  had  a  rough 
crossing;  she  was  very  tired,  and  he  had  suggested  she 
should  postpone  her  visit  to  the  next  day.  But  next  day  her 
humour  was  different.  She  knew  quite  well  that  the  sooner 
she  went  the  easier  it  would  be  for  her  to  press  her  father 
to  forgive  her,  to  entrap  him  into  reconciliation.  She  had 
imagined  that  she  could  entrap  her  father  into  forgiving 
her  by  throwing  herself  into  his  arms,  or  with  the  mere 
phrase,  "  Father,  I've  come  to  ask  you  how  I  sing."  But 
she  had  not  been  able  to  overcome  her  aversion  to  going 
to  Dulwich,  and  every  time  the  question  presented  itself  a 
look  of  distress  came  into  her  face.  "  If  I  only  knew  what 
he  would  say  when  he  sees  me.  If  the  first  word  were  over 
— the  '  entrance,' "  she  added,  with  a  smile. 

It  was  hopeless  to  argue  with  her,  so  Owen  said  that  if 
she  did  not  go  before  the  end  of  the  week  it  would  be  better 
to  postpone  her  visit  until  after  her  first  appearance. 

"  But  supposing  I  fail.  I  never  cared  for  my  Mar- 
garet. Besides,  it  was  mother's  great  part.  He'll  think 
me  as  bad  an  artist  as  I  have  been  a  bad  daughter.  Owen, 
dear,  have  patience  with  me,  I  know  I'm  very  weak,  but  1 
dread  a  face  of  stone." 

Neither  spoke  for  a  long  while.  Then  she  said,  "  If  I 
had  only  gone  to  him  last  year.  You  remember  he  had 
written  me  a  nice  letter,  but  instead  I  went  away  yachting; 
you  wanted  to  go  to  Greece." 

"  Evelyn,  don't  lay  the  blame  on  me ;  you  wanted  to  go 


136  EVELYN  INNES. 

too.  ...  I  hope  that  when  you  do  see  your  father  you  will 
say  that  it  was  not  all  my  fault." 

"  That  what  was  not  your  fault,  dear  ?  " 

"  Well — I  mean  that  it  was  not  all  my  fault  that  we 
went  away  together.  You  know  that  I  always  liked  your 
father.  I  was  interested  in  his  ideas ;  I  do  not  want  him  to 
think  too  badly  of  me.  You  will  say  something  in  my  fa- 
vour. After  all,  I  haven't  treated  you  badly.  If  J.  didn't 
marry  you,  it  was  because " 

"  Dearest  Owen,  you've  been  very  good  to  me." 

He  felt  that  to  ask  her  again  to  go  to  see  her  father 
would  only  distress  her.  He  said  instead — 

"  I  hear  a  great  deal  about  your  father's  choir.  It  ap- 
pears to  be  quite  the  fashion  to  hear  high  mass  at  St. 
Joseph's." 

"  Father  always  said  that  Palestrina  would  draw  all 
London,  if  properly  given.  Last  Sunday  he  gave  a  mass  by 
Vittoria;  I  longed  to  go.  He'll  never  forgive  me  for  not 
going  to  hear  his  choir.  It  is  strange  that  we  both  should 
have  succeeded — he  with  Palestrina,  I  with  Wagner." 

"  Yes,  it  is  strange.  .  .  .  But  you  promise  me  that  you'll 
go  and  see  him  as  soon  as  you've  sung  Margaret — the  fol- 
lowing day." 

"  Yes,  dear,  I  promise  you  I'll  do  that." 

"  You'll  send  him  a  box  for  the  first  night?  " 

u  He  wouldn't  sit  in  a  box.  If  he  went  at  all,  it  would 
be  in  some  obscure  place  where  he  would  not  be  seen." 

"  You  had  better  send  him  a  box,  a  stall  and  a  dress 
circle,  then  he  can  take  his  choice  ....  But  perhaps  you 
had  better  not  send.  His  presence  among  the  audience 
would  only  make  you  nervous." 

"  !N"o,  on  the  contrary,  his  presence  would  make  me  sing." 

For  whatever  reason  she  had  certainly  sung  :m<l  artrd 
with  exceptional  force  and  genius,  and  Margaret  was  at 
once  lifted  out  of  the  obscurity  into  which  it  was  slipping 
and  took  rank  with  her  Elizabeth  and  her  Elsa.  As  they 
drove  home  together  in  the  brougham  after  the  perform- 
ance, Owen  assured  her  that  she  had  infused  a  life  and 
meaning  into  the  part,  and  that  henceforth  her  reading 
would  have  to  be  "  adopted." 

"I  wonder  if  father  was  there?  He  was  not  in  the  box. 
Did  you  look  in  the  stalls  ? " 


EVELYN  INNES.  137 

"  Yes,  but  he  was  not  there.  You'll  go  and  see  him  to- 
morrow." 

"  No,  not  to-morrow,  dear." 

"  Why  not  to-morrow  ?  " 

"  Because  I  want  him  to  see  the  papers.  He  may  not 
have  been  in  the  theatre;  on  Thursday  night  is  Lady  As- 
eott's  ball;  then  on  Friday — I'll  go  and  see  father  on 
Friday.  I'll  try  to  summon  courage.  But  there  is  a  re- 
hearsal of  '  Tannhauser '  on  Friday." 

And  so  that  she  might  not  be  too  tired  on  Friday  morn- 
ing, Owen  insisted  on  her  leaving  the  ball-room  at  two 
o'clock,  and  their  last  words,  as  he  left  her  on  the  doorstep, 
were  that  she  would  go  to  Dulwich  before  she  went  to  re- 
hearsal. But  in  the  warmth  of  her  bed,  not  occupied  long 
enough  to  restore  to  the  body  the  strength  of  which  a  ball- 
room had  robbed  it,  her  resolution  waned,  and  her  brain, 
weak  from  insufficient  sleep,  shrank  from  the  prospect  of 
a  long  drive  and  a  face  of  stone  at  the  end  of  it.  She  sat 
moodily  sipping  her  chocolate  and  brioche. 

"  You  were  at  the  opera  last  night,  Merat.  Was  Made- 
moiselle Helbrun  a  success  ?  " 

"  No,  mademoiselle,  I'm  afraid  not." 

"  Ah !  "  Evelyn  put  down  her  cup  and  looked  at  her 
maid.  "  I'm  sorry,  but  I  thought  she  wouldn't  succeed 
in  London.  She  was  coldly  received,  was  she  ?  " 

"  Yes,  mademoiselle." 

"  I'm  sorry,  for  she's  a  true  artist." 

"  She  has  not  the  passion  of  mademoiselle." 

A  little  look  of  pleasure  lit  up  Evelyn's  face. 

"  She  is  a  charming  singer.  I  can't  think  how  she  could 
have  failed.  Did  you  hear  any  reason  given? " 

"  Yes,  mademoiselle,  I  met  Mr.  Ulick  Dean." 

"  What  did  he  say?     He'd  know." 

"  He  said  that  Mademoiselle  Helbrun's  was  the  true 
reading  of  the  part.  But  '  Carmen '  had  lately  been  turned 
into  a  femme  de  la  halle,  and,  of  course,  since  the  public 
had  tasted  realism  it  wanted  more.  I  thought  Mademoi- 
selle Helbrun  rather  cold.  But  then  I'm  one  of  the  public. 
Mademoiselle  has  not  yet  told  me  what  I  am  to  tell  the 
coachman." 

"  You  do  not  listen  to  me,  Merat,"  Evelyn  answered  in 
a  sudden  access  of  ill  humour.  "  Instead  of  accepting  the 


138  EVELYN  INNES. 

answer  I  chose  to  give,  you  stop  there  in  the  intention  of 
obtaining  the  answer  which  seems  to  you  the  most  suitable. 
I  told  you  to  tell  the  coachman  that  he  was  to  get  a  map 
and  acquaint  himself  with  the  way  to  Dulwich." 

And  to  bring  the  interview  to  a  close,  she  told  Merat  to 
take  away  the  chocolate  tray,  and  took  up  one  of  the  scores 
which  lay  on  a  small  table  by  the  bedside — "  Tannhauser  " 
and  "  Tristan  and  Isolde."  It  would  bore  her  to  look  at 
Elizabeth  again;  she  knew  it  all.  She  chose  Tristan  in- 
stead, and  began  reading  the  second  act  at  the  place  where 
Isolde,  ignoring  Brangiine's  advice,  signals  to  Tristan  with 
the  handkerchief.  She  glanced  down  the  lines,  hearing  the 
motive  on  the  'cellos,  then,  in  precipitated  rhythm,  taken 
up  by  the  violins.  When  the  emotion  has  reached  breaking 
point,  Tristan  rushes  into  Isolde's  arms,  and  the  frantic 
happiness  of  the  lovers  is  depicted  in  short,  hurried  phrases. 
The  score  slipped  from  her  hands  and  her  thoughts  ran  in 
reminiscence  of  a  similar  scene  which  she  had  endured  in 
Venice  nearly  four  years  ago.  She  had  not  seen  Owen 
for  two  months,  and  was  expecting  him  every  hour.  The 
old  walls  of  the  palace,  the  black  and  watchful  pictures, 
the  watery  odours  and  echoes  from  the  canal  had  fright- 
ened and  exhausted  her.  The  persecution  of  passion  in  her 
brain  and  the  fever  of  passion  utloat  in  her  blood  waxed, 
and  the  minutes  became  each  a  separate  torture.  There 
was  only  one  lamp.  She  had  watched  it,  fearing  every  mo- 
ment lest  it  should  go  out.  .  .  .  She  had  cast  a  frightened 
glance  round  the  room,  and  it  was  the  spectre  of  life  that 
her  exalted  imagination  saw,  and  her  natural  eyes  a  strange 
ascension  of  the  moon.  The  moon  rose  out  of  a  sullen  sky, 
and  its  reflection  trailed  down  the  lagoon.  Hardly  any 
stars  were  visible,  and  everything  was  extraordinarily 
still.  The  houses  leaned  heavily  forward  and  Evelyn 
feared  she  might  go  mad,  and  it  was  through  this  phantom 
world  of  lagoon  and  autumn  mist  that  a  gondola  glided. 
This  time  her  heart  told  her  with  a  loud  cry  that  he  hud 
come,  and  she  stood  in  the1  shadowy  room  waiting  for  him, 
her  brain  on  fire.  The  emotion  of  that  night  came  to  her 
at  will,  and  lying  in  her  warm  bed  she  considered  the  meet- 
ing of  Tristan  and  Isolde  in  the  garden,  and  the  duet  on 
tlir  hank  of  sultry  ilouvrs.  Like  Tristan  and  Isolde,  she 
and  Owen  had  struggled  to  find  expression  for  their  emo- 


EVELYN  INNES.  139 

tion,  but,  not  having  music,  it  had  lain  cramped  up  in 
their  hearts,  and  their  kisses  were  vain  to  express  it.  She 
found  it  in  these  swift  irregularities  of  rhythm,  replying 
to  every  change  of  motion,  and  every  change  of  key  cried 
back  some  pang  of  the  heart. 

This  scene  in  the  second  act  was  certainly  one  of  the 
most  difficult — at  least  to  her — and  the  one  in  which  she 
most  despaired  of  excelling.  It  suddenly  occurred  to  her 
that  she  might  study  it  with  Ulick  Dean.  She  had  met  him 
at  rehearsal,  and  had  been  much  interested  in  him.  He  had 
sent  her  six  melodies — strange,  old-world  rhythms,  recall- 
ing in  a  way  the  Gregorian  she  used  to  read  in  childhood  in 
the  missals,  yet  modulated  as  unintermittently  as  Wagner; 
the  same  chromatic  scale  and  yet  a  haunting  of  the  antique 
rhythm  in  the  melody.  Ulick  knew  her  father;  he  had 
said,  "  Mr.  Innes  is  my  greatest  friend."  He  loved  her 
father,  she  could  see  that,  but  she  had  not  dared  to  ques- 
tion him.  Talking  to  Owen  was  like  the  sunshine — the 
earth  and  only  the  earth  was  visible — whereas  talking  to 
Ulick  was  like  the  twilight  through  which  the  stars  were 
shining.  Dreams  were  to  him  the  true  realities;  externals 
he  accepted  as  other  people  accepted  dreams — with  diffi- 
dence. Evelyn  laughed,  much  amused  by  herself  and  Ulick, 
and  she  laughed  as  she  thought  of  his  fixed  and  averted  look 
as  he  related  the  tales  of  bards  and  warriors.  Every  now 
and  then  his  dark  eyes  would  light  up  with  gleams  of 
sunny  humour;  he  probably  believed  that  the  legends  con- 
tained certain  eternal  truths,  and  these  he  was  shaping  into 
operas.  He  was  the  most  interesting  young  man  she  had 
met  this  long  while. 

He  had  been  about  to  tell  her  why  he  had  recanted  his 
Wagnerian  faith  when  they  had  been  interrupted  by  Owen. 
.  .  .  She  could  conceive  nothing  more  interesting  than  the 
recantation  by  a  man  of  genius  of  the  ideas  that  had  first 
inspired  him.  His  opera  had  been  accepted,  and  would  be 
produced  if  she  undertook  the  principal  part.  Why  should 
she  not  ?  They  could  both  help  each  other.  Truly,  he  was 
the  person  with  whom  she  could  study  Isolde,  and  she 
imagined  the  flood  of  new  light  he  would  throw  upon  it. 
Her  head  drowsed  on  the  pillow,  and  she  dreamed  the  won- 
derful things  he  would  tell  her.  But  as  she  drowsed  she 
thought  of  the  article  he  had  written  about  her  Margaret, 


140  EVELYN  INNES. 

and  it  was  the  desire  to  read  it  again  that  awoke  her. 
Stretching  out  her  hand,  she  took  it  from  the  table  at  her 
bedside  and  began  reading.  He  liked  the  dull  green  dress 
she  wore  in  the  first  act ;  and  the  long  braids  of  golden  hair 
which  he  admired  were  her  own.  He  had  mentioned  them 
and  the  dark  velvet  cape,  which  he  could  not  remember 
whether  she  wore  or  carried.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  car- 
ried it  on  her  arm.  His  forgetf ulness  on  this  point  seemed 
to  her  charming,  and  she  smiled  with  pleasure.  He  said 
that  she  made  good  use  of  the  cape  in  the  next  act,  and 
she  was  glad  that  he  had  perceived  that. 

Like  every  other  Margaret,  her  prayer-book  was  in  her 
hand  when  she  first  met  Faust;  but  she  dropped  it  as  she 
saw  him,  and  while  she  shyly  and  sweetly  sang  that  she  was 
neither  a  lady  nor  a  beauty,  she  stooped  and  with  some 
embarrassment  picked  up  the  book.  She  passed  on,  and 
did  not  stop  to  utter  a  mechanical  cry  when  she  saw  Mephis- 
topheles,  and  then  run  away.  She  hesitated  a  moment; 
Mephistopheles  was  not  in  sight,  but  Faust  was  just  behind 
her,  and  over  the  face  of  Margaret  flashed  the  thought, 
"  What  a  charming — what  a  lovely  young  man !  I  think 
I'll  stop  a  little  longer,  and  possibly  he'll  say  something 
more.  But  no — after  all — perhaps  I'd  better  not,"  and, 
with  a  little  sigh  of  regret,  she  turned  and  went,  at  first 
quietly  and  then  more  quickly,  as  though  fearful  of  being 
tempted  to  change  her  mind. 

In  the  garden  scene,  she  sang  the  first  bars  of  the  music 
absent-mindedly,  dusting  and  folding  her  little  cape,  stop- 
ping when  it  was  only  half  folded  to  stand  forgetful  a 
moment,  her  eyes  far  off,  gazing  back  into  the  preceding 
act.  Awaking  with  a  little  start,  she  went  to  her  spinning- 
wheel,  and,  with  her  back  to  the  audience,  arranged  the 
spindle  and  the  flax.  Then  stopping  in  her  work  and  stand- 
ing in  thought,  she  half  hummed,  half  sang  the  song  "  Le 
Itoi  de  Thule."  Not  till  she  had  nearly  finished  did  she 
sit  down  and  spin,  and  then  only  for  a  moment,  as  though 
too  restless  and  disturbed  for  work  that  afternoon. 

Evelyn  was  glad  that  Ulick  had  remarked  that  the 
jewels  were  not  "  the  ropes  of  pearls  we  are  accustomed  to, 
but  strange,  mediaeval  jewels,  long,  heavy  r:irrings  and 
girdles  and  broad  bracelets."  Owen  had  given  her  tlif-c. 
She  remembered  how  she  had  put  them  on,  just  as  t'lii-k 


EVELYN  INNES.  141 

said,  with  the  joy  of  a  child  and  the  musical  glee  of  a  bird. 
"  She  laughed  out  the  jewel  song,"  he  said,  "  with  real 
laughter,  returning  lightly  across  the  stage ; "  and  he  said 
that  they  had  "  wondered  what  was  this  lovely  music  which 
they  had  never  heard  before !  "  And  when  she  placed  the 
jewels  back,  she  did  so  lingeringly,  regretfully,  slowly,  one 
by  one,  even  forgetting  the  earrings,  perhaps  purposely,  till 
just  before  she  entered  the  house. 

"In  the  duet  with  Faust,"  he  said,  "we  are  drawn  by 
that  lovely  voice  as  in  a  silken  net,  and  life  had  for  us  but 
one  meaning — the  rapture  of  love." 

"Has  it  got  any  other  meaning?"  Evelyn  paused  a 
moment  to  think.  She  was  afraid  that  it  had  long  ceased 
to  have  any  other  meaning  for  her.  But  love  did  not  seem 
to  play  a  large  part  in  Ulick's  life.  Yet  that  last  sentence 
— to  write  like  that  he  must  feel  like  that.  She  wondered, 
and  then  continued  reading  his  article. 

She  was  glad  that  he  had  noticed  that  when  she  fainted 
at  the  sight  of  Mephistopheles,  she  slowly  revived  as  the 
curtain  was  falling  and  pointing  to  a  place  where  he  had 
boon,  seeing  him  again  in  her  over-wrought  brain.  This 
she  did  think  was  a  good  idea,  and,  as  he  said,  "  seemed  to 
accomplish  something." 

He  thought  hor  idea  for  her  entrance  in  the  following 
act  exceedingly  well  imagined,  for,  instead  of  coining  on 
neatly  dressed  and  smiling  like  the  other  Margarets,  she 
came  down  the  steps  of  the  church  with  her  dress  and  hair 
disordered,  in  the  arms  of  two  women,  walking  with  diffi- 
culty, only  half  recovered  from  her  fainting  fit.  "  It  is 
by  ideas  like  this,"  he  said,  "  that  the  singer  carried  for- 
Avard  the  story,  and  made  it  seem  like  a  real  scene  that  was 
happening  before  our  eyes.  And  after  her  brother  has 
cursed  Margaret,  when  he  falls  back  dead,  Miss  Innes  re- 
treats, getting  away  from  the  body,  half  mad,  half  afraid. 
She  did  not  rush  immediately  to  him,  as  has  been  the  oper- 
atic custom,  kneel  down,  and,  with  one  arm  leaning  heavily 
on  Valentine's  stomach,  look  up  in  the  flies.  Miss  Innes, 
after  backing  far  away  from  him,  slowly  returned,  as  if  im- 
pelled to  do  so  against  her  will,  and,  standing  over  the  body, 
looked  at  it  with  curiosity,  repulsion,  terror;  and  then  she 
burst  into  a  whispered  laugh,  which  communicated  a  feel- 
ing of  real  horror  to  the  audience. 


142  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  In  the  last  act,  madness  was  tangled  in  her  hair,  and 
in  her  wide-open  eyes  were  read  the  workings  of  her  insane 
brain,  and  her  every  movement  expressed  the  pathos  of 
madness;  her  lovely  voice  told  its  sad  tale  without  losing 
any  of  its  sweetness  and  beauty.  The  pathos  of  the  little 
souvenir  phrases  was  almost  unbearable,  and  the  tragic 
power  of  the  finish  was  extraordinary  in  a  voice  of  such 
rare  distinction  and  fluid  utterance.  Her  singing  and  act- 
ing went  hand  in  hand,  twin  sisters,  equal  and  indivisible, 
and  when  the  great  moment  in  the  trio  came,  she  stepped 
forward  and  with  an  inspired  intensity  lifted  her  quivering 
hands  above  her  head  in  a  sort  of  mad  ecstasy,  and  sang 
out  the  note  clear  and  true,  yet  throbbing  with  emotion." 

The  paper  slid  from  Evelyn's  hand.  She  could  see  from 
Ulick's  description  of  her  acting  that  she  had  acted  very 
well;  if  she  had  not,  he  could  not  have  written  like  that. 
But  her  acting  only  seemed  extraordinary  when  she  read 
about  it.  It  was  all  so  natural  to  her.  She  simply  went  on 
the  stage,  and  once  she  was  on  the  stage  she  could  not  do 
otherwise.  She  could  not  tell  why  she  did  things.  Her 
acting  was  so  much  a  part  of  herself  that  she  could  not 
think  of  it  as  an  art  at  all;  it  was  merely  a  medium  through 
which  she  was  able  to  re-live  past  phases  of  her  life,  or  to 
exhibit  her  present  life  in  a  more  intense  and  concentrated 
form.  The  dropping  of  the  book  was  quite  true;  she  had 
dropped  a  piece  of  music  when  she  first  saw  Owen,  and  the 
omission  of  the  scream  was  natural  to  her.  She  felt 
sure  that  she  would  not  have  seen  Mephistophcles  just  then  ; 
she  would  have  been  too  busy  thinking  of  the  young  man. 
But  she  thought  that  she  might  take  a  little  credit  for  her 
entrance  in  the  third  act.  Somehow  her  predecessors  had 
not  seen  that  it  was  absurd  to  come  smiling  and  tripping 
out  of  the  church  where  she  had  seen  Mephistopheles.  She 
read  the  lines  describing  her  power  to  depict  madness.  But 
even  in  the  mad  scenes  she  was  not  conscious  of  having  in- 
vented anything.  She  had  had  sensations  of  madness — she 
supposed  everyone  had — and  she  threw  herself  into  th".-r 
sensations,  intensifying  them,  giving  them  more  promi- 
nence on  the  stage  than  they  had  had  in  her  own  personal 
life. 

Many  had  thought  her  a  greater  actress  than  a  singer; 
and  she  had  been  advised  to  dispense  with  her  voice  and 


EVELYN  INNES.  .  143 

challenge  a  verdict  on  her  speaking  voice  in  one  of  Shake- 
speare's plays.  Owen  would  have  liked  her  to  risk  the  ad- 
venture, but  she  dared  not.  It  would  seem  a  wanton  in- 
sult to  her  voice.  She  had  imagined  that  it  might  leave 
her  as  an  offended  spirit  might  leave  its  local  habitation. 
Her  Margaret  had  been  accepted  in  Italy,  so  she  must  sing 
it  as  well  as  she  acted  it.  But  when  she  had  asked  the 
Marquis  d'Albazzi  if  she  sang  it  as  well  as  her  mother,  he 
had  said,  "  Mademoiselle,  the  singers  of  my  day  were  as  ex- 
quisite flutes,  and  the  singers  of  your  day  give  emotions 
that  no  flute  could  give  me,"  and  when  she  had  told  him 
that  she  was  going  to  be  so  bold  as  to  attempt  Norma,  ho 
had  raised  his  eyebrows  a  little  and  said  "  Mademoiselle  will 
sing  it  according  to  the  fashion  of  to-day;  we  cannot  com- 
pare the  present  with  the  past."  Ah!  Ce  vieux  marquis 
etait  ires  fin.  And  her  father  would  think  the  same ;  never 
would  he  admit  that  she  could  sing  like  her  mother.  But 
Ulick  had  said — and  no  doubt  he  had  already  read  Illick'a 
article — that  she  had  rescued  the  opera  from  the  grave  into 
which  it  was  gliding.  None  of  them  liked  it  for  itself. 
Her  father  spoke  indulgently  about  it  because  her  mother 
had  sung  it.  Ulick  praised  it  because  he  was  tired  of 
hearing  Wagner  praised,  and  she  liked  it  because  her  first 
success  had  been  made  in  it. 

These  morning  hours,  how  delicious  they  were !  to  think 
how  easily  success  had  come.  Madame  Savclli  had  taught 
her  eight  operas  in  ten  months,  and  she  had  sung  Margaret 
in  Brussels — a  very  thin  performance,  no  doubt,  but  she 
had  always  been  a  success.  Ulick  would  not  have  thought 
much  of  her  first  Margaret.  Almost  all  the  points  he  ad- 
mired she  had  since  added.  She  had  learnt  the  art  of  be- 
ing herself  on  the  stage.  That  was  all  she  had  learnt,  and 
she  very  much  doubted  if  there  was  anything  else  to  learn. 
If  Nature  gives  one  a  personality  worth  exhibiting,  the 
art  of  acting  is  to  get  as  much  of  one's  personality  into 
the  part  as  possible.  That  was  the  ABC  and  the  X  Y  Z 
of  the  art  of  acting.  She  had  always  found  that  when  she 
was  acting  herself,  she  was  acting  something  that  had  not 
been  acted  before.  She  did  not  compare  her  Margaret  with 
her  Elizabeth.  With  Margaret  she  was  back  in  the  school- 
room. Still  she  thought  that  Ulick  was  right;  she  had 
got  a  new  thrill  out  of  it.  Her  Margaret  was  unpublished, 
10 


144  EVELYN  INNES. 

but  her  Elizabeth  was  three  times  as  real.  There  was  no 
comparison;  not  even  in  Isolde  could  she  be  more  true 
to  herself.  Her  Elizabeth  was  a  side  of  her  life  that  now 
only  existed  on  the  stage.  Brunnhilde  was  her  best  part, 
for  into  it  she  poured  all  her  joy  of  life,  all  her  love  of  the 
blue  sky  with  great  white  clouds  floating,  all  her  enthusi- 
asm for  life  and  for  the  hero  who  came  to  awaken  her  to 
life  and  to  love.  In  Brunnhilde  and  Elizabeth  all  the  hu- 
manity she  represented — and  she  thought  she  was  a  fairly 
human  person — was  on  the  stage.  But  Elsa?  That  was 
the  one  part  she  was  dissatisfied  with.  There  were  people 
who  liked  her  Elsa.  Oh,  her  Elsa  had  been  greatly  praised. 
Perhaps  she  was  mistaken,  but  at  the  bottom  of  her  heart 
she  could  not  but  feel  that  her  Elsa  was  a  failure.  The 
truth  was  that  she  had  never  understood  the  story.  It  be- 
gan beautifully,  the  beginning  was  wonderful — the  maiden 
whom  everyone  was  persecuting,  who  would  be  put  to  death 
if  some  knight  did  not  come  to  her  aid.  She  could  sing 
the  dream — that  she  understood.  Then  the  silver-clad 
knight  who  comes  from  afar,  down  the  winding  river,  past 
thorpe  and  town,  to  release  her  from  those  who  were  plot- 
ting against  her.  But  afterward?  This  knight  who 
wanted  to  marry  her,  and  who  would  not  tell  his  name. 
What  did  it  mean?  And  the  celebrated  duet  in  the  nuptial 
chamber — what  did  it  mean?  It  was  beautiful  music — 
but  what  did  it  mean?  Could  anyone  tell  her?  She  had 
often  asked,  but  no  one  had  ever  been  able  to  tell  her. 

She  knew  very  well  the  meaning  of  the  duet,  when 
Siegfried  adventures  through  the  fire-surrounded  mountain 
and  wakes  Brunnhildc  with  a  kiss.  That  duet  meant  the 
joy  of  life,  the  rapture  of  awakening  to  the  adventure  of 
life,  the  delight  of  the  swirling  current  of  ephemeral  things. 
And  the  duet  that  she  was  going  to  sing;  she  knew  what 
that  meant  too.  It  meant  the  desire  to  possess.  Desire 
finding  a  barrier  to  complete  possession  in  the  flesh  would 
break  off  the  fleshly  lease,  and  enter  the  great  darkness 
where  alone  was  union  and  rest. 

But  she  could  not  discover  the  idea  in  the  "  Lohengrin  " 
duet.  Senta  she  understood,  and  she  thought  she  under- 
stood Kundry.  She  had  not  yet  begun  to  study  the  part. 
But  Elsa?  Suddenly  the  thought  that,  if  she  was  going  to 
Dulwich,  she  must  get  up,  struck  her  like  a  spur,  and  she 


EVELYN  INNES.  145 

sprang  out  of  bed,  and  laying  her  finger  on  the  electric  bell 
she  kept  the  button  pressed  till  Merat  arrived  breathless. 

"  Merat,  I  shall  get  up  at  once ;  prepare  my  bath,  and 
tell  the  coachman  I  shall  be  ready  to  start  in  twenty  min- 
utes." 

"Twenty  minutes?     Mademoiselle  is  joking." 

"  No,  I  am  not  ...  in  twenty  minutes — half-an-hour 
at  the  most." 

"  It  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  dress  you  in  less  than 
three-quarters  of  an  hour." 

"I  shall  be  dressed  in  half-an-hour.  Go  and  tell  the 
coachman  at  once;  I  shall  have  had  my  bath  when  you 
return." 

Her  dressing  was  accomplished  amid  curt  phrases.  "  It 
doesn't  matter,  that  will  do.  ...  I  can't  afford  to  waste 
timo.  .  .  .  Come,  Merat,  try  to  get  on  with  my  hair." 

And  while  Merat  buttoned  her  boots  she  buttoned  her 
gloves.  She  wore  a  grey,  tailor-made  dress  and  a  blue  veil 
tied  round  a  black  hat  with  ostrich  feathers.  Escaping 
from  her  maid's  hands,  she  ran  downstairs.  But  the  din- 
ing-room door  opened,  and  Lady  Duckle  intervened. 

"  My  dear  girl,  you  really  cannot  go  out  before  you 
have  had  something  to  eat." 

"  I  cannot  stay ;  I'll  get  something  at  the  theatre." 

"  Do  eat  a  cutlet,  it  will  not  take  a  moment  ...  a 
mouthful  of  omelette.  Think  of  your  voice." 

There  were  engravings  after  Morland  on  the  walls,  and 
the  silver  on  the  breakfast-table  was  Queen  Anne — the 
little  round  tea  urn  Owen  and  Evelyn  had  picked  up  the 
other  day  in  a  suburban  shop;  the  horses,  whose  glittering 
red  hides  could  be  seen  through  the  window,  had  been 
bought  last  Saturday  at  Tattersall's.  Evelyn  went  to  the 
window  to  admire  them,  and  Lady  Duckle's  thoughts 
turned  to  the  coachman. 

"  He  sent  in  just  now  to  ask  for  a  map  of  London.  It 
appears  he  doesn't  know  the  way,  yet,  when  I  took  up  his 
references,  I  was  assured  that  he  knew  London  perfectly." 

"  Dulwich  is  very  little  known ;  it  is  at  least  five  miles 
from  here." 

"  Oh,  Dulwich !  .  .  .  you're  going  there  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  ought  to  have  gone  the  day  after  we  arrived  in 
London.  ...  I  wanted  to;  I've  been  thinking  of  it  all 


146  EVELYN  INNES. 

the  time,  and  the  longer  I  put  it  off  the  more  difficult  it 
will  become." 

"  That  is  true." 

"  I  thought  I  would  drive  there  to-day  before  I  went 
to  rehearsal." 

"  Why  choose  a  day  on  which  you  have  a  rehearsal  ?  " 

"  Only  because  I've  put  it  off  so  often.  Something  al- 
ways happens  to  prevent  me.  I  must  see  my  father." 

"  Have  you  written  to  him  ?  " 

"  No,  but  I  sent  him  a  paper  containing  an  account  of 
the  first  night.  I  thought  he  might  have  written  to  me 
about  it,  or  he  might  have  come  to  see  me.  He  must  know 
that  I  am  dying  to  see  him." 

"  I  think  it  would  be  better  for  you  to  go  to  see  him  in 
the  first  instance." 

Lady  Duckle  meant  Evelyn  to  understand  that  it  would 
not  be  well  to  risk  anything  that  might  bring  about  a  meet- 
ing between  Sir  Owen  and  Mr.  Innes.  But  she  did  not 
dare  to  be  more  explicit.  Owen  had  forbidden  any  dis- 
cussion of  his  relations  with  Evelyn. 

"  Of  course  it  would  be  nice  for  you  to  see  your  father. 
But  you  should,  I  think,  go  to  him;  surely  that  is  the 
proper  course." 

"  We've  written  to  each  other  from  time  to  time,  but 
not  lately — not  since  we  went  to  Greece.  .  .  .  I've  neglected 
my  correspondence." 

Tears  rose  to  Evelyn's  eyes,  and  Lady  Duckle  was  sorely 
tempted  to  lead  her  into  confidences.  But  Owen's  coun- 
sels prevailed;  she  dissembled,  saying  that  sho  know  how 
Evelyn  loved  her  father,  and  how  nice  it  would  be  for  her 
to  see  him  again  after  such  a  long  absence. 

"  I  dare  say  he'll  forgive  me,  but  there'll  be  reproaches. 
I  don't  think  there's  anyone  who  hates  a  scene  more  than 
I  do." 

"  I  haven't  lived  with  you  five  years  without  having 
found  out  that.  But  in  avoiding  a  disagreeable  scene  we 
are  often  preparing  one  more  disagreeable." 

"  That  is  true.  ...  I  think  I'll  go  to  Dulwich." 

"  Shall  you  have  time  ?  .  .  .  You're  not  in  the  first  act." 

"  Dulwich  is  not  six  miles  from  here.  We  can  drive 
there  easily  in  three-quarters  of  an  hour.  And  tliror- 
quarters  of  an  hour  to  get  back.  They  won't  begin  to  re- 


EVELYN  INNES. 

hearse  the  second  act  before  one.  It  is  a  little  after  ten 
now." 

"  Then  good-bye." 

Lady  Duckle  followed  her  to  the  front  door  and  stood 
for  a  moment  to  admire  the  beauty  of  the  morning.  The 
chestnut  horses  pawed  the  ground  restlessly,  excited  by  the 
scent  of  the  lilac  which  a  wilful  little  breeze  carried  up 
from  Hamilton  Place.  Every  passing  hansom  was  full  of 
flowered  silks,  and  the  pale  laburnum  gold  hung  in  loose 
tassels  out  of  quaint  garden  inlets.  The  verandahed  bal- 
conies seemed  to  hang  lower  than  ever,  and  they  were  all 
hung  and  burdened  with  flowers.  And  of  all  these  eight- 
eenth century  houses,  Evelyn's  was  the  cosiest,  and  the 
elder  of  the  two  men,  who,  from  the  opposite  pavement, 
stood  watching  the  prima  donna  stroking  the  quivering 
nostrils  of  her  almost  thoroughbred  chestnuts  with  her 
white-gloved  hand,  could  easily  imagine  her  in  her  pretty 
drawing-room  standing  beside  a  cabinet  filled  with  Wor- 
cester and  old  Battersea  china,  for  he  knew  Owen's  taste 
and  was  certain  the  Louis  XVI  marble  clock  would  be 
well  chosen,  and  he  would  have  bet  five-and-twenty  pounds 
that  there  were  some  Watteau  and  Gainsborough  drawings 
on  the  walls. 

"  Owen  is  doing  the  thing  well.  Those  horses  must 
have  cost  four  hundred.  I  know  how  much  the  Boucher 
drawing  cost." 

"  How  do  you  know  there  is  a  Boucher  drawing? " 

"  Because  we  bid  against  each  other  for  it  at  Christie's. 
A  woman  lying  on  her  stomach,  drawn  very  freely,  very 
simply — quite  a  large  drawing — just  the  thing  for  such  a 
room  as  hers  is,  amid  chintz  and  eighteenth  century  inlaid 
or  painted  tables." 

"  I  wonder  where  she  is  going.     Perhaps  to  see  him." 

"  At  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning !  More  likely  that  she 
will  call  at  her  dressmaker's  on  her  way  to  rehearsal.  She 
is  to  sing  Elizabeth  to-morrow  night." 

The  young  man  pitied  Evelyn's  misfortune  of  so  elderly 
an  admirer  as  Owen.  It  seemed  to  him  impossible  that  she 
could  like  a  man  who  must  be  over  forty,  and  the  thought 
saddened  him  that  he  might  never  have  so  desirable  a 
mistress. 

"  I  wonder  if  she's  faithful  to  him? " 


148  EVELYN  INNES. 

"Faithful  to  him,  after  six  years  of  liaison!" 

"  But,  my  dear  Frank,  we  know  you  don't  believe  that 
any  woman  is  straight.  How  do  you  know  that  he  is  her 
lover?  Very  often " 

"  My  dear  Cyril,  because  you  meet  her  at  a  ball  at  Lady 
Ascott's,  and  because  she  has  lived  with  that  Lady  Buckle 
— an  old  thing  who  used  to  present  the  daughters  of  iron- 
mongers at  Court  for  a  consideration — above  all,  because 
you  want  her  yourself,  you  are  ready  to  believe  anything. 
I  never  did  meet  anyone  who  could  deceive  himself  with 
the  same  ease.  Besides,  I  know  all  about  her.  It's  quite 
an  extraordinary  story." 

"  How  did  he  pick  her  up  ?  " 

"  I'll  tell  you  presently.  She's  got  into  her  carriage ; 
we  shall  be  able  to  see  if  she  rouges  as  she  passes." 

Evelyn  had  noticed  the  men  as  she  stood  trying  to  ex- 
plain as  much  of  the  way  as  she  could  to  her  somewhat 
obtuse  coachman.  Her  bow  was  gracious  as  the  chest  mils 
swept  the  light  carriage  by  them;  the  young  man  pleased 
her  fancy  for  the  moment,  and  she  tried  to  recall  the  few 
words  they  had  exchanged  as  she  left  the  ball.  The  elder 
man  was  a  friend  of  Owen's.  But  his  face  was  suddenly 
blotted  from  her  mind.  For  if  her  father  were  to  refuse 
to  see  her,  if  he  were  to  cast  her  off  for  good  and  all,  what 
would  she  do?  Her  life  would  be  unendurable;  she  would 
go  saad,  mad  as  Margaret.  But  the  picture  did  not  frighten 
her,  she  knew  it  was  fictitious;  and  looking  into  her  soul 
for  the  truth,  she  saw  the  trees  in  the  Green  Park  and  the 
chimney  pots  of  Walsingham  House,  and  she  realised  that 
the  nearest  future  is  enveloped  in  obscurity.  She  had  al- 
ways dreaded  the  journey  to  London ;  she  had  been  warned 
against  London,  and  ever  since  she  had  consented  to  come 
she  had  been  ill  at  ease  and  nervous — of  what  she  did  not- 
know — of  someone  behind  her,  of  someone  lurking  round 
her.  She  argued  that  she  would  not  have  had  those  fed- 
ings  if  there  was  not  a  reason.  When  she  had  them,  sonic- 
thing  always  happened  to  her,  and  nothing  could  convince 
her  that  London  was  not  the  turning-point  in  her  fortune. 
The  carriage  seemed  to  be  going  very  fast;  they  were  al- 
ready in  Victoria  Street;  she  cried  to  the  coachman  not 
to  drive  so  fast,  he  answered  that  lie  must  drive  at  lli.it, 
pace  if  he  wua  to  get  there  by  eleven.  .  .  .  Surely  her 


EVELYN  INNES.  149 

father  would  not  refuse  to  see  her.  He  could  not,  he  would 
not  take  her  by  the  shoulders  and  turn  her  out  of  the  house 
— the  house  she  had  known  all  her  life.  Oh,  good  heavens ! 
if  he  did,  what  would  happen  afterwards?  She  could  not 
go  back  to  Owen  and  sing  operas  at  Covent  Garden,  and 
her  soul  wailed  like  a  child  and  a  deadly  terror  of  her  fa- 
ther came  upon  her.  It  might  be  her  destiny  never  to 
speak  to  him  again!  That  fate  had  been  the  fate  of  other 
women.  Why  should  it  not  be  hers?  He  might  not  send 
for  her  when  he  was  dying,  and  if  she  were  dying  he  might 
not  come  to  her;  and  after  death,  would  she  see  him? 
Would  they  then  be  reconciled?  If  she  did  not  see  her 
father  in  this  world,  she  would  never  see  him,  for  she  had 
promised  Owen  to  believe  in  oblivion,  and  she  thought  she 
did  believe  in  nothing;  but  she  felt  now  that  she  must 
say  her  prayers,  she  must  pray  that  her  father  might  for- 
give her.  It  might  be  absurd.  But  she  felt  that  a  prayer 
would  ease  her  mind.  It  was  dreadfully  hypocritical  to 
pray  to  a  God  one  didn't  believe  in.  There  was  no  sense 
in  it,  nor  was  there  much  sense  in  much  else  one  did.  .  .  . 
She  had  promised  Owen  not  to  pray,  and  it  was  a  sort  of 
blasphemy  to  say  prayers  and  lead  a  life  of  sin.  She  did 
not  like  to  break  her  promise  to  Owen.  She  must  make 
up  her  mind.  .  .  .  Her  father  might  be  at  St.  Joseph's! 
and  it  was  with  a  sense  of  refreshing  delight  that  she  called 
the  coachman  and  gave  the  order.  The  chestnuts  were 
prancing  like  greyhounds  amid  heavy  drays  and  clumsy, 
bear-like  horses;  the  coachman  was  trying  to  hold  them  in 
juul  to  understand  the  policeman,  who  shouted  the  way  to 
him  from  the  edge  of  the  pavement. 


XIII. 

BUT  she  ought  not  to  go  to  St.  Joseph's.  She  had  prom- 
ised Owen  to  avoid  churches,  priests — all  that  reminded  her 
of  religion.  He  had  begged  that  until  she  was  firm  in  her 
agnosticism  she  should  not  expose  herself  to  influences 
which  could  but  result  in  mental  distress,  and  without  any 


150  EVELYN  INNES. 

practical  issue  unless  to  separate  them.  She  had  escaped 
once;  next  time  he  might  find  it  more  difficult  to  win  her 
back.  How  kind  he  was.  He  had  not  said  a  word  about 
his  own  suffering. 

It  had  happened  nearly  three  years  ago  in  Florence,  and 
an  accident  had  brought  it  all  about.  One  afternoon  she 
was  walking  in  the  streets;  she  could  still  see  the  deep 
cornices  showing  distinct  against  the  sky;  she  was  admir- 
ing them  when  suddenly  a  church  appeared;  she  could  not 
tell  how  it  was,  but  she  had  been  propelled  to  enter.  .  .  . 
A  feeling  which  had  arisen  out  of  her  heart,  a  sort  of 
yearning — that  was  it.  The  church  was  almost  empty; 
how  restful  it  had  seemed  that  afternoon,  the  rough  plas- 
tered walls  and  the  two  figures  of  the  nuns  absorbed  in 
prayer.  Her  heart  had  begun  to  ache,  and  her  daily  life 
with  its  riches  and  glories  had  seemed  to  concern  her  no 
longer.  It  was  as  if  the  light  had  changed,  and  she  had 
become  suddenly  aware  of  her  real  self.  A  tall  cross  stood 
oddly  placed  between  the  arches;  she  had  not  seen  it  at 
first,  but  as  her  eyes  rested  upon  it  she  had  been  drawn  into 
wistful  communion  with  her  dying  Redeemer.  And  all 
that  had  seemed  false  suddenly  became  true,  and  she  had 
left  the  church  overcome  with  remorse.  That  night  her 
door  was  closed  to  Owen;  she  had  pleaded  indisposition, 
unable  for  some  shame  to  speak  the  truth.  On  the  next 
day  and  the  day  after  the  desire  of  forgiveness  had  sent 
her  to  the  church  and  then  to  the  priest,  but  the  priest 
had  refused  her  absolution  till  she  separated  from  her  lover. 
She  had  felt  that  she  must  obey.  She  had  written  a  note 
— she  could  not  think  of  it  now — so  cruel  did  it  seem,  yet 
at  the  time  it  had  seemed  quite  natural.  It  was  not  until 
the  next  day,  and  the  day  after  was  worse  still,  that  she 
began  to  plumb  the  depths  of  her  own  unhappincss;  every 
day  it  seemed  to  grow  deeper.  She  could  not  keep  him 
out  of  her  mind.  She  used  to  sit  and  try  to  do  needlework 
in  the  hotel  sitting-room.  But  how  often  had  she  had  to 
put  it  down  and  to  walk  to  the  window  to  hide  her  tears? 
As  the  time  drew  near  for  her  to  go  to  the  theatre,  sho 
had  to  vow  not  to  cry  again  till  she  got  home.  He  was 
always  in  his  box — once  she  had  nearly  broken  down,  ami, 
pitying  her,  ho  came  no  more.  But  not  to  sec  him  at  all 
was  worse  than  the  pain  of  seeing  him.  That  empty  box! 


EVELYN  INNES.  151 

And  all  through  the  night  she  thought  of  him  in  his  hotel, 
only  a  street  or  two  distant.  She  could  not  go  through 
it  again,  nor  could  she  think  what  would  have  happened 
if  they  had  not  met.  Something  had  prompted  her  to  go 
out  one  afternoon;  she  was  weak  with  weeping  and  sick 
with  love,  and,  feeling  that  there  are  burdens  beyond  our 
strength,  she  had  walked  with  her  eyes  steadily  fixed  before 
her  .  .  .  and  somehow  she  was  not  surprised  when  she 
saw  him  coming  towards  her.  He  joined  her  quite  natu- 
rally, as  if  by  appointment,  and  they  had  walked  on,  in- 
stinctively finding  their  way  out  of  the  crowd.  They  had 
walked  on  and  on,  now  and  then  exchanging  remarks, 
waiting  for  a  full  explanation,  wondering  what  form  it 
would  take.  Cypresses  and  campanili  defined  themselves 
in  the  landscape  as  the  evening  advanced.  Further  on,  tho 
country  flattened  out;  there  were  urban  gardens  and  dusty 
little  vineyards.  They  had  sat  on  a  bench ;  above  them 
was  a  statue  of  the  Virgin;  she  remembered  noticing  it; 
it  reminded  her  of  her  scapular,  but  nothing  had  mattered 
to  her  then  but  Owen.  He  said — 

"  Well,  Evelyn,  when  is  all  this  nonsense  going  to 
cease?  " 

"  I  don't  know,  Owen ;  I'm  very  unhappy." 

The  sense  of  reconciliation  which  overtook  her  was  too 
delicious  to  be  resisted,  and  she  remembered  how  all  the 
way  home  she  had  longed  for  the  moment  when  she  would 
throw  herself  into  his  arms.  He  had  not  reproved  her  nor 
reproached  her;  he  had  merely  forgiven  her  the  pain  she 
had  caused  him.  There  were  sounds  of  children's  voices 
in  the  air  and  a  glow  of  light  upon  the  roofs.  Their  talk 
had  been  gentle  and  philosophic;  she  had  listened  eagerly, 
and  had  promised  to  shun,  influences  which  made  her  use- 
lessly unhappy.  And  he  had  promised  her  that  in  time  to 
come  she  would  surely  succeed  in  freeing  herself  from  the 
tentacles  of  this  church,  and  that  the  day  would  come  when 
she  would  watch  the  Mass  as  she  would  some  childish  sport. 
"  Though,"  he  added,  smiling,  "  it  is  doubtful  if  anyone 
can  see  his  own  rocking-horse  without  experiencing  a  de- 
sire to  mount  it."  Nearly  three  years  had  passed  since 
that  time  in  Florence,  and  she  was  now  going  to  put  the 
strength  of  her  agnosticism  to  the  test. 

"  They  have  not  built  a  new  entrance,"  she  remarked  to 


152  EVELYN  INNES. 

herself,  as  the  coachman  reined  up  the  chestnuts  before  the 
meagre  steps.  "  But  alterations  are  being  made,"  she 
thought,  catching  sight  of  some  scaffolding.  As  she  stepped 
out  of  her  carriage  she  remembered  that  her  dress  and 
horses  could  not  fail  to  suggest  Owen's  money  to  her  fa- 
ther. She  paused,  and  then  hoped  he  would  remember  that 
she  was  getting  three  hundred  pounds  a  week,  and  could 
pay  for  her  carriage  and  gowns  herself.  And,  smiling  at 
the  idea  of  dressing  herself  in  a  humble  frock  suitable  for 
reconciliation,  she  entered  the  church  hurriedly.  She  did 
not  care  to  meet  him  in  open  daylight,  in  the  presence  of 
her  servants.  The  church  would  be  a  better  place.  He 
could  not  say  much  to  her  in  church,  and  she  thought  she 
would  like  to  meet  him  suddenly  face  to  face;  then  there 
would  be  no  time  for  explanations,  and  he  could  not  refuse 
to  speak  to  her.  Looking  round  she  saw  that  Mass  was 
in  progress  at  one  of  the  side  altars.  The  acolyte  had  just 
changed  the  book  from  the  left  to  the  right,  and  the  con- 
gregation of  about  a  dozen  had  risen  for  the  reading  of  the 
Gospel.  She  knew  that  her  father  was  not  among  them. 
She  must  have  known  all  the  while  that  he  was  not  in 
church.  If  he  were  at  St.  Joseph's,  he  would  be  in  the 
practising  room.  She  might  go  round  and  ask  for  him 
.  .  .  and  run  the  risk  of  meeting  one  of  the  priests!  They 
were  men  of  tact,  and  would  refrain  from  unpleasant  allu- 
sions. But  they  knew  she  was  on  the  stage,  that  she  had 
not  been  back  since  she  had  left  home;  they  could  not  but 
suspect;  however  they  might  speak,  she  could  not  avoid 
reading  meanings,  which  very  likely  were  not  intended,  into 
their  words.  .  .  .  And  she  would  see  the  practising  room 
full  of  faces,  and  her  father,  already  angry  at  the  inter- 
ruption, opening  the  door  to  her.  It  would  be  worse  than 
meeting  him  in  the  street.  No,  she  would  not  seek  him  in 
the  practising  room — then  where — Dulwich?  Perhaps,  but 
not  to-day.  She  would  wait  in  the  church  and  see  if  the 
Elevation  compelled  her  to  bow  her  head. 

And  in  this  intention  she  took  a  seat  in  full  view  of  the 
altar  where  the  priest  was  saying  Mass.  Every  shape  and 
every  colour  of  this  church,  its  slightest  characteristics, 
brought  back  an  impression  of  long  ago;  the  very  wording 
of  her  childish  thoughts  was  suddenly  remembered;  and 
bhe  felt,  whether  she  believed  or  disbelieved,  that  it  was 


EVELYN  INNES.  153 

pleasant  to  kneel  where  she  knelt  when  she  was  a  little  girl. 
It  was  touching  to  see  the  poor  folk  pray.  The  poor  Irish 
and  Italians — especially  the  Irish — how  simple  they  were; 
it  was  all  real  to  them,  however  false  it  may  have  become 
to  her.  Her  eyes  wandered  among  the  little  congregation ; 
only  one  she  recognised — the  strangely  thin  and  crooked 
lady  who,  as  far  back  as  she  could  remember,  used  to  walk 
up  the  aisle,  her  hands  crossed  in  front  of  her  like  a 
wooden  doll's.  She  had  not  altered  at  all;  she  wore  the 
same  battered  black  bonnet.  This  lonely  lady  had  always 
been  a  subject  of  curiosity  to  Evelyn.  She  remembered 
how  she  used  to  invent  houses  for  her  to  live  in  and  suit- 
able friends  and  evenings  at  home.  The  day  that  Owen 
came  to  St.  Joseph's  before  he  went  away  on  his  yacht  to 
the  Mediterranean,  he  had  put  his  hat  on  this  lady's  chair, 
and  she  had  had  to  ask  him  to  remove  it.  How  frightened 
she  had  looked,  and  he  was  not  too  well  pleased  at  having  to 
sit  beside  her.  That  was  six  years  ago,  and  Evelyn  thought 
how  much  had  happened  to  her  in  that  time — a  great  deal 
to  her  and  very  little  to  that  poor  woman  in  the  black  bon- 
net. She  must  have  some  little  income  on  which  she  lived 
in  a  room  with  wax  fruit  in  the  window.  Every  morning 
and  evening  she  was  at  St.  Joseph's.  The  church  was  her 
one  distraction;  it  was  her  theatre,  the  theatre  certainly 
of  all  her  thoughts. 

But  at  that  moment  the  new  choir-loft  caught  Evelyn's 
eye,  and  she  imagined  the  melodious  choirs  answering  each 
other  from  opposite  sides.  No  doubt  her  father  had  in- 
sisted on  the  addition,  so  that  such  antiphonal  music  as  the 
Reproaches  might  be  given.  Some  rich  carpets  had  been 
laid  down,  some  painting  and  cleaning  had  been  done,  and 
the  fashionable  names  on  the  front  seats  reminded  her  of 
the  Grand  Circle  at  Covent  Garden.  Evidently  the  fre- 
quentation  of  St.  Joseph's  was  much  the  same  as  the  thea- 
tres. The  congregation  was  attracted  by  the  choirs,  and, 
when  these  were  silenced,  the  worship  shrank  into  the 
mumbled  prayers  of  a  few  Irish  and  Italians.  Evelyn  won- 
dered if  the  poor  lady  could  distinguish  between  her  fa- 
ther's music  and  Father  Gordon's.  The  only  music  she 
heard  was  the  ceaseless  music  of  her  devout  soul. 

Was  it  not  strange  that  the  paper  she  had  sent  her 
father  containing  an  account  of  her  success  in  the  part  of 


154  EVELYN  INNES. 

Margaret  contained  also  an  account  of  this  choir?  They 
had  both  succeeded.  The  old  music  had  made  St.  Joseph's 
a  fashionable  church.  So  far  she  knew,  and  despite  her 
strange  terror  of  their  first  meeting,  she  longed  to  hear  him 
tell  her  how  he  had  overcome  the  opposition  of  Father 
Gordon. 

The  Gospel  ended,  the  little  congregation  gat  down,  and 
Evelyn  reflected  how  much  more  difficult  belief  was  to  her 
than  to  the  slightly-deformed  woman  in  front  of  her.  The 
doctrine  that  a  merciful  God  has  prepared  a  place  of  eter- 
nal torment  for  his  erring  creatures  is  hard  enough  to 
credit.  She  didn't  think  she  could  ever  believe  that  again ; 
or  that  God  had  sent  his  Son  on  earth  to  expiate  on  the 
cross  the  sins  which  he  and  his  Father  in  conjunction  with 
the  Holy  Ghost  had  fated  them  to  commit;  or  that  bread 
and  wine  becomes,  at  the  bidding  of  the  priest,  the  creator 
of  all  the  stars  we  soe  at  midnight.  True  that  she  believed 
these  doctrines  no  longer,  but,  unfortunately,  this  advance- 
ment brought  her  no  nearer  to  the  solution  of  the  question 
directly  affecting  her  life.  Owen  encouraged  her  to  per- 
severe in  her  agnosticism.  "  Old  instincts,"  he  said,  "  are 
not  conquered  at  once.  You  must  be  patient.  The  Scotch 
were  converted  about  three  or  four  hundred  years  after 
Christ.  Christianity  is  therefore  fourteen  hundred  years 
old,  whereas  the  seed  of  agnosticism  has  been  sown  but  a 
few  years;  give  it  time  to  catch  root."  She  had  laughed, 
his  wit  amused  her,  but  our  feelings  are — well,  they  arc 
ours,  and  we  cannot  separate  ourselves  from  them.  They 
are  certain,  though  everything  else  is  uncertain,  and  when 
she  looked  into  her  mind  .(she  tried  to  avoid  doing  so  aa 
much  as  possible,  but  she  could  not  always  help  herself) 
something  told  her  that  the  present  was  but  a  passing  stage. 
Often  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  was  like  one  out  on  a 
picnic — she  was  amused — she  would  be  sorry  when  it 
ended;  but  she  could  not  feel  that  it  was  to  last.  Other 
women  were  at  home  in  their  lives;  she  was  not  in  hers. 
We  all  have  a  life  that  it  is  more  natural  for  us  to  live  than 
any  other;  we  all  have  a  mission  of  some  sort  to  accom- 
plish, and  the  happiest  are  those  whose  lives  correspond  to 
their  convictions.  Even  Owen's  love  did  not  quite  compen- 
sate her  for  the  lack  of  agreement  between  her  outer  and 
inner  life. 


EVELYN  IXNES.  155 

All  this  they  had  argued  a  hundred  times,  but  their 
points  of  view  were  so  different.  Once,  however,  she 
thought  she  had  made  him  understand.  She  had  said,  "  If 
you  don't  understand  religion,  you  understand  art.  Well, 
then,  imagine  a  man  who  wants  to  paint  pictures ;  give  him 
a  palace  to  live  in;  place  every  pleasure  at  his  call,  impos- 
ing only  one  condition — that  he  is  not  to  paint.  His  appe- 
tites may  detain  him  in  the  palace  for  a  while,  but  sooner 
or  later  he  will  cry  out,  '  All  these  pleasures  are  nothing  to 
me ;  what  I  want  is  to  paint  pictures.' "  She  could  see 
that  the  parable  had  convinced  him,  or  nearly.  lie  had 
said  he  was  afraid  she  was  hopeless.  But  a  moment  after, 
drawing  her  toward  him  with  quiet,  masterful  ai'rn,  and 
speaking  with  that  hard  voice  that  could  become  so  soft, 
it  had  seemed  as  if  heaven  suddenly  melted  away,  and 
his  kisses  were  worth  every  sacrifice. 

That  was  the  worst  of  it.  She  was  neither  one  thing 
nor  the  other.  She  desired  two  lives  diametrically  opposed 
to  each  other,  consequently  she  would  never  be  happy. 
But  she  was  happy.  She  had  everything;  she  could  think 
of  nothing  that  she  wanted  that  she  had  not  got:  it  was 
really  too  ridiculous  for  her  to  pretend  to  herself  that  she 
was  not  happy.  So  long  as  she  had  believed  in  religion 
she  had  not  been  happy,  but  now  she  believed  no  longer — 
she  was  happy.  It  was  strange,  however,  that  a  church  al- 
ways brought  the  old  feeling  back  again,  and  her  thoughts 
paused,  and  in  a  silent  awe  of  soul  she  asked  herself  if, 
at  the  bottom  of  her  soul,  she  still  disbelieved  in  God.  But 
it  was  so  silly  to  believe  the  story  of  the  Virgin — think 
of  it.  ...  As  Owen  said,  in  no  mythology  was  there  any- 
thing more  ridiculous.  Nevertheless,  she  did  not  convince 
herself  that  the  dim,  vague,  unquiet  sensation  which  ran- 
kled in  her  was  not  a  still  unextirpated  germ  of  the  orig- 
inal faith.  She  tried  to  think  it  was  not  a  religious  feel- 
ing but  the  result  of  the  terrible  interview  still  hanging 
over  her,  the  dread  that  her  father  might  not  forgive  her. 
She  tried  to  look  into  her  mind  to  discover  the  impulse 
which  had  compelled  her  to  turn  from  her  intention  and 
come  to  this  church.  She  remembered  the  uncontrollable 
desire  to  say  a  prayer :  that  she  could  have  resisted,  but  the 
moment  after  she  had  remembered  that  perhaps  it  was  too 
late  to  find  her  father  at  home.  But  had  she  really  hoped 


156  EVELYN  INNES. 

to  find  him  at  St.  Joseph's,  or  had  she  used  the  pretext  to 
deceive  herself?  She  could  not  tell.  But  if  religion  was 
not  true,  if  she  did  not  believe,  how  was  it  that  she  had 
always  thought  it  wrong  to  live  with  a  man  to  whom  she 
was  not  married?  There  was  no  use  pretending,  she  never 
had  quite  got  a  haunting  scruple  on  that  point  out  of  her 
mind. 

There  could  be  but  two  reasons,  he  had  insisted,  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  matrimonial  idea — the  preservation  of 
the  race,  and  the  belief  that  a  union  without  matrimony 
is  an  offence  against  God.  But  the  race  is  antecedent 
to  matrimony,  and  if  there  be  no  resurrection,  there  can 
be  no  religion.  ...  If  there  be  no  personal  God  who  man- 
ages our  affairs  and  summons  to  everlasting  bliss  or  tor- 
ment, the  matter  is  not  worth  thinking  about — at  least  not 
to  a  Catholic.  Pious  agnosticism  is  a  bauble  unworthy  to 
tempt  anyone  who  has  been  brought  up  a  Catholic.  A 
Catholic  remains  a  Catholic,  or  else  becomes  a  frank  ag- 
nostic. Only  weak-minded  Protestants  run  to  that  slender 
shelter — morality  without  God.  "  But  why  are  you  like 
this  ?  "  he  had  said,  fixing  his  eyes.  ..."  I  think  I  see. 
Your  father  comes  of  a  long  line  of  Scotch  Protestants; 
he  became  a  Catholic  so  that  he  might  marry  your  mother. 
Your  scruples  must  be  a  Protestant  heredity.  I  wonder 
if  it  is  so?  In  no  other  way  can  I  account  for  the  fact 
that  although  you  no  longer  believe  in  a  resurrection,  you 
cling  fast  to  the  doctrine  which  declares  it  wrong  for  two 
people,  both  free,  to  live  together,  unless  they  register  their 
cohabitation  in  the  parish  books.  Our  reason  is  our  own. 
Our  feelings  we  inherit.  You  are  enslaved  to  your  Scotch 
ancestors;  you  are  a  slave  to  the  superstitions  of  your 
grandmother  and  your  grand-aunts;  you  obey  them." 

"  But  do  we  not  inherit  our  reason  just  as  much  as  we 
inherit  our  feelings  ?  " 

They  had  argued  that  point.  She  could  not  remember 
what  his  argument  was,  but  she  remembered  that  she  had 
held  her  ground,  that  he  had  complimented  her,  not  for- 
getting, however,  to  take  the  credit  of  the  improvement  in 
her  intellectual  equipment  to  himself,  which  indeed  was 
no  more  than  just.  She  would  have  been  nothing  without 
him.  How  he  had  altered  her!  She  had  come  to  think 
and  feel  like  him.  Sho  often  oaught  herself  saying  exactly 


EVELYN  INNES.  157 

what  he  would  say  in  certain  circumstances,  and  having 
heard  him  say  how  odours  affected  him,  she  had  tried  to 
acquire  a  like  sensibility.  Unconsciously  she  had  assimi- 
lated a  great  deal.  That  little  trick  of  his,  using  his  eyes 
a  certain  way,  that  knowing  little  glance  of  his  had  become 
habitual  to  her.  She  had  met  men  who  were  more  pro- 
found, never  anyone  whose  mind  was  more  alert,  more 
amusing  and  sufficient  for  every  occasion.  She  sentimen- 
talized a  moment,  and  then  remembered  further  similarities. 
They  now  ate  the  same  dishes,  and  no  longer  had  need  to 
consult  each  other  before  ordering  dinner.  In  their  first 
week  in  Paris  she  had  learnt  to  look  forward  to  chocolate 
in  the  morning  before  she  got  up,  and  this  taste  was  en- 
deared to  her,  for  it  reminded  her  of  him.  In  the  picture 
galleries  she  had  always  tried  to  pick  out  the  pictures  he 
would  like.  If  they  could  not  decide  how  a  passage  should 
be  sung,  or  were  in  doubt  regarding  the  attitude  and  ges- 
ture best  fitted  to  carry  on  a  dramatic  action,  she  had  no- 
ticed that,  if  they  separated  so  that  they  might  arrive  at 
individual  conclusions,  they  almost  always  happened  upon 
the  same.  To  each  other  they  now  affected  not  to  know 
from  whom  a  certain  quaint  notion  had  come — clearly  it 
had  been  inspired  by  him,  but  which  had  first  expressed 
it  was  not  sure — that  the  three  great  type  operas  were 
"  Tristan  and  Isolde,"  the  "  Barber  of  Seville,"  and  "  La 
Belle  Helene."  Nor  were  they  sure  which  had  first  sug- 
gested that  in  the  last  week  of  her  stage  career  she  should 
appear  in  all  three  parts.  Evelyn  Innes,  as  La  Belle 
Helene,  would  set  musical  London  by  the  ears. 

She  had  often  wondered  whether,  by  having  absorbed 
so  much  of  Owen's  character,  she  had  proved  herself  defi- 
cient in  character.  Owen  maintained,  on  the  contrary, 
that  the  sign  of  genius  is  the  power  of  recognising  and 
assimilating  that  which  is  necessary  to  the  development  of 
oneself.  He  mentioned  Goethe's  life,  which  he  said  was 
but  the  tale  of  a  long  assimilation  of  ideas.  The  narrow, 
barren  soul  is  narrow  and  barren  because  it  cannot  ac- 
quire. We  come  into  the  world  with  nothing  in  our  own 
right  except  the  capacity  for  the  acquisition  of  ideas.  We 
cannot  invent  ideas;  we  can  only  gather  some  of  those  in 
circulation  since  the  beginning  of  the  world.  We  endow 
them  with  the  colour  and  form  of  our  time,  and,  if  that 


158  EVELYN  INNES. 

colour  and  form  be  of  supreme  quality,  the  work  is  pro- 
served  as  representative  of  a  period  in  the  history  of 
civilisation;  a  name  may  or  may  not  be  attached  to  each 
specimen.  Genius  is  merely  the  power  of  assimilation; 
only  the  fool  imagines  he  invents.  Owen  would  go  still 
further.  He  maintained  that  if  the  circumstances  of  a 
man's  life  admitted  the  acquisition  of  only  one  set  of  ideas, 
his  work  was  thin;  but  if,  on  the  contrary,  circumstances 
threw  him  in  the  way  of  a  new  set  of  ideas,  a  set  of  ideas 
different  from  the  first  set,  yet  sufficiently  near  for  the 
same  brain  to  assimilate,  then  the  work  produced  by  that 
brain  would  be  endowed  with  richer  colour;  or,  in  severer 
form,  the  idea  was,  he  said,  to  a  work  of  art  what  salt  is  to 
meat — it  preserved  works  of  art  against  the  corrupting 
action  of  time. 

How  they  had  talked!  how  they  had  discussed  things! 
They  had  talked  about  everything,  and  she  remembered  all 
he  said,  as  she  recalled  the  arguments  he  had  used.  The 
scene  of  this  last  conversation  passed  and  repassed  in  van- 
ishing gleams — Bopart  on  the  Rhine.  They  had  stopped 
there  on  their  way  to  Bayreuth,  where  she  was  going  to  sing 
Elsa.  The  maidens  and  their  gold,  the  fire-surrounding 
Brunnhilde,  the  death  of  the  hero,  the  end  of  the  legends: 
these  she  knew,  but  of  "  Parsifal "  she  knew  nothing — the 
story  or  the  music.  The  time  was  propitious  for  him  to 
tell  it.  The  flame  of  the  candle  burnt  in  the  still  midnight, 
and  she  had  listened  with  bated  breath.  She  could  see  Owen 
leaning  forward  telling  the  story,  and  she  could  even  see 
her  own  listening  face  as  he  related  how  the  poor  fool  rises 
through  sanctification  of  faith  and  repudiation  of  doubt, 
how  he  heals  the  sick  king  with  the  sacred  spear  and  be- 
comes himself  the  high  priest  of  the  Grail.  It  had  seemed 
to  Evelyn  that  she  had  been  carried  beyond  the  limits  of 
earthly  things.  The  thrill  and  shiver  of  the  dead  man's 
genius  haunted  the  liquid  ripple  of  the  river;  the  moment 
was  ecstatic;  the  deep,  windless  night  was  full  of  the  haunt- 
ing ripple  of  the  Rhine.  And  she  remembered  how  she  had 
clasped  her  hands  .  .  .  her  very  words  came  back  to 
her.  .  .  . 

"  It  is  wonderful  .  .  .  and  we  are  listening  to  the 
Rhine;  we  shall  never  forget  this  midnight." 

At  that  moment  the   Sanctus  bell  rang,  and  she  re- 


EVELYN  INNES.  159 

membered  why  she  had  stayed  in  church.  She  wished  to 
discover  what  remnant,  tatter  or  shred  of  her  early  faith 
still  clung  about  her.  She  wished  to  put  her  agnosticism 
to  the  test.  She  wondered  if  at  the  moment  of  consecra- 
tion she  would  be  compelled  to  bow  her  head.  The  bell 
rang  again.  .  .  .  She  grew  tremulous  with  expectation.  She 
strove  to  refrain,  but  her  head  bowed  a  little,  and  her 
thoughts  expanded  into  prayer;  she  was  not  sure  that  she 
actually  prayed,  for  her  thoughts  did  not  divide  into  ex- 
plicit words  or  phrases.  There  certainly  followed  a  beauti- 
ful softening  of  her  whole  being,  the  bitterness  of  life  ex- 
tinguished ;  divine  eyes  seemed  bent  upon  her,  and  she  was 
in  the  midst  of  mercy,  peace  and  love ;  and  daring  no  longer 
to  think  she  did  not  believe,  she  sat  rapt  till  Mass  was 
ended. 


XIV. 

STILL  under  the  sweet  influence  of  the  church  and  the 
ceremony  she  got  into  her  carriage.  But  the  mystery  en- 
gendered in  her  soul  seemed  to  fade  and  die  in  the  sun- 
shine; she  could  almost  perceive  it  going  out  like  a  gentle, 
evanescent  mist  on  the  surface  of  a  pool ;  she  remembered 
that  she  would  very  likely  meet  Ulick  at  rehearsal,  and 
could  find  out  from  him  how  her  father  would  be  likely  to 
receive  her  visit.  Ulick  seemed  the  solution  of  the  diffi- 
culty— only  he  might  tell  her  that  her  father  did  not  wish 
to  see  her.  She  did  not  think  he  would  say  that,  and  the 
swing  of  her  carriage  and  her  thoughts  went  to  the  same 
rhythm  until  the  carriage  stopped  before  the  stage  door  of 
Co  vent  Garden  Theatre. 

As  she  ascended  the  stairs  the  swing  door  was  pushed 
open.  The  pilgrims'  song  drifted  through  it,  and  she  knew 
that  they  had  begun  the  overture.  She  crossed  a  stage  in 
indescribable  disorder.  Scene-shifters  were  calling  to  each 
other,  and  there  was  an  incessant  hammering  in  the  flies. 
"  We  might  as  well  rehearse  in  a  barn  with  the  threshing- 
machine  going  all  the  while,"  Evelyn  thought.  She  had  to 
pass  down  a  long  passage  to  get  to  the  stalls,  and,  finding 
herself  in  inky  darkness,  she  grew  nervous,  though  she 
11 


160  EVELYN  INNES. 

knew  well  enough  whither  it  led.  At  last  she  perceived  a 
little  light,  and,  following  it  for  a  while,  she  happened  to 
stumble  into  one  of  the  boxes,  and  there  she  sat  and  in- 
dulged in  angry  comments  on  the  negligence  of  English 
operatic  management. 

Through  the  grey  twilight  of  the  auditorium  she  could 
see  heads  and  hands,  and  shapes  of  musical  instruments. 
The  conductor's  grey  hair  was  combed  back  over  his  high 
forehead.  lie  swung  a  lean  body  to  the  right  and  left. 
Suddenly  he  sprang  up  in  his  scat,  and,  looking  in  the  di- 
rection of  certain  instruments,  he  brought  down  his  stick 
determinedly,  and,  having  obtained  the  effect  he  desired. 
his  beat  swung  leisurely  for  a  while.  ..."  'Cellos,  cres- 
cendo," he  cried,  "  Ah,  mon  Dieu !  Ta-ra-la-la-la !  Now, 
gentlemen,  number  twenty-five,  please." 

For  a  few  bars  the  stick  swung  automatically,  striking 
the  harmonium  as  it  descended.  "  'Cellos,  a  sudden  piano 
on  the  accent,  and  then  no  accent  whatever.  Ta-ra-ta- 
ta-ta !  " 

At  the  back  of  the  stalls  the  poor  Italian  chorus  had 
gathered  like  a  herd,  not  daring  to  sit  in  seats,  the  hire  of 
which  for  a  few  hours  equalled  their  weekly  wages.  But 
the  English  girls,  whose  musical  tastes  had  compeWcd  them 
from  their  suburban  homes,  had  no  such  scruples.  Con- 
iident  of  the  cleanliness  of  their  skirts  and  hats,  they  sat  in 
the  best  stalls,  their  scores  on  their  knees.  One  happened 
to  look  up  as  Evelyn  entered.  She  whispered  to  her  neigh- 
l-i in rs,  and  immediately  after  the  row  was  discussing  Bay- 
reuth  and  Evelyn  Inncs. 

Meanwhile,  the  pilgrims'  song  grew  more  strenuous, 
until  at  last  the  trombones  proclaimed,  in  unconquerable 
tones,  Tannhsiuser's  abjuration  of  sensual  life,  and  at  that 
moment  the  tall,  spare  figure  of  Mr.  Hermann  (loet/.e.  the 
manager,  appeared  in  the  doorway  leading  to  the  stalls. 
He  was  with  his  apparitor  and  satellite,  Mr.  Wheeler,  a  fop- 
pish little  man,  who  seemed  pleased  at  being  seen  in  nm- 
ii-leiitial  conversation  with  his  great  chief.  Catching  sight 
of  Evelyn  in  the  box  just  above  his  eyes,  he  smiled  and 
bmved  obsequiously.  A  sudden  thought  seemed  to  strike 
him,  and  Evelyn  said  to  herself,  "  He's  coming  to  talk  with 
me  about  the  I'.r.-ingiine.  I  hope  he  has  done  what  I  told 
him,  and  engaged  Ilelbrun  for  the  part." 


EVELYN  INNES.  Id 

At  the  same  moment  it  flashed  across  her  mind  that 
Mademoiselle  Helbrun's  unsucessful  appearance  in  "  Car- 
men "  might  cause  Mr.  Hermann  Goetze  to  propose  some- 
one else.  She  hoped  that  this  was  not  so,  for  she  could 
not  consent  to  sing  Isolde  to  anyone  but  Helbrun's  Bran- 
giiiie,  and  it  was  in  this  resolute,  almost  aggressive,  frame 
of  mind  that  she  received  the  manager. 

"  How  do  you  do,  Mr.  Hermann  Goetze  ?  Well,  I  hope 
you  succeeded  in  inducing  Mademoiselle  Helbrun  to  play 
Brangiine  ?  " 

"  I  have  not  had  a  moment,  Miss  Innes.  I  have  not  seen 
Mademoiselle  Helbrun  since  last  night.  You  will  be  sorry 
to  hear  that  her  Carmen  was  not  considered  a  success.  .  .  . 
Do  you  think " 

"  There  is  no  finer  artist  than  Mademoiselle  Helbrun. 
If  you  do  not  engage  her " 

Mr.  Hermann  Goetze  took  his  handkerchief  from  his 
pocket,  and,  upon  inquiry,  she  learnt  that  he  was  suffering 
from  toothache.  Mr.  Wheeler  advised  different  remedies, 
but  Mr.  Hermann  Goetze  did  not  believe  in  remedies. 
There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  have  it  out.  Evelyn  sug- 
gested her  dentist,  and  Mr.  Hermann  Goetze  apologised  for 
this  interruption  in  the  conversation.  He  begged  of  her 
not  to  think  of  him,  and  they  entered  into  the  difficiilt 
question  of  salary.  He  told  her  that  Mademoiselle  Hcl- 
brun  would  ask  eighty  pounds  a  performance,  and  such  a 
heavy  salary  added  to  the  four  hundred  pounds  a  perform- 
ance he  was  playing  for  the  Tristan  and  Isolde  would 

But  so  intense  was  the  pain  from  his  tooth  at  this  moment 
that  he  could  not  finish  the  sentence.  A  little  alarmed, 
Evelyn  waited  until  the  spasm  had  ended,  and  when  the 
manager's  composure  was  somewhat  restored,  she  spoke  of 
the  change  and  stress  of  emotion,  often  expressed  in  iso- 
lated notes  and  vehement  declamation,  and  she  reminded 
the  poor  man  of  BrangJine's  long  song  in  which  she  en- 
deavours to  appease  Isolde.  Mr.  Hermann  Goetze  looked 
at  her  out  of  pain-stricken  eyes,  and  said  he  was  listening. 
She  assured  him  that  the  melodious  effect  would  be  lost  if 
Brangiine  could  not  sing  the  long-drawn  phrases  in  a  single 
breath.  But  she  stopped  suddenly,  perceiving  that  an 
aesthetic  discussion  was  impossible  with  a  man  who  was  in 
violent  pain.  Mr.  Wheeler  proposed  to  go  to  the  chemist 


1G2  EVELYN  1NNES. 

for  a  remedy.  Mr.  Hermann  Goetze  shook  his  head;  he 
had  tried  all  remedies  in  vain;  the  dentist  was  the  only 
resort,  and  he  promised  to  go  to  Evelyn's  when  the  re- 
hearsal was  over,  and  he  retired  from  the  box,  holding  his 
handkerchief  to  his  face.  When  he  got  on  to  the  stage, 
Evelyn  was  glad  to  see  that  he  was  a  little  better,  and  was 
able  to  give  some  directions  regarding  the  stage  manage- 
ment. She  was  genuinely  sorry  for  him,  for  she  had  had 
Toothache  hei-self.  Nevertheless,  it  was  unfortunate  that 
they  had  not  been  able  to  settle  about  Mademoiselle  llel- 
brun's  engagement.  She  pondered  how  this  might  be 
effected;  perhaps,  after  rehearsal,  Mr.  Hermann  (!oetze 
might  be  feeling  better,  or  she  might  ask  him  to  dinner. 
As  she  considered  the  question,  her  eyes  wandered  over  the 
auditorium  in  quest  of  Ulick  Dean. 

She  spied  him  sitting  in  the  far  corner,  and  wondered 
when  he  would  look  in  her  direction,  and  then  remembering 
what  he  had  said  about  the  transmission  of  thought  between 
sympathetic  affinities,  she  sought  to  reach  him  with  hois. 
She  closed  her  eyes  so  that  she  might  concentrate  her  will 
sufficiently  for  it  to  penetrate  his  brain.  She  sat  tense  with 
her  desire,  her  hands  clenched  for  more  than  a  minute,  but 
he  did  not  answer  to  her  will,  and  its  tension  relaxed  in 
spite  of  herself.  "  He  sits  there  listening  to  the  music  as 
if  he  had  never  heard  a  note  of  it  before.  Why  does  he  not 
come  to  me?"  As  if  in  answer,  Ulick  got  out  of  his  si  nil 
and  walked  toward  the  entrance,  seemingly  in  the  intention 
of  leaving  the  theatre.  Evelyn  felt  that  she  must  speak  to 
him,  and  she  was  about  to  call  to  one  of  the  chorus  and  ask 
him  to  tell  Mr.  Dean  that  she  wanted  to  speak  to  him,  but 
a  vague  inquietude  seemed  to  awaken  in  him,  and  he 
seemed  uncertain  whether  to  go  or  stay,  and  he  looked 
round  the  theatre  as  if  seeking  someone.  He  looked  sev- 
eral times  in  the  direction  of  Evelyn's  box  without  seeing 
her,  and  she  was  at  last  obliged  to  wave  her  hand.  Then 
the  dream  upon  his  face  vanished,  and  his  eyes  lit  up,  and 
his  nod  was  the  nod  of  one  whose  soul  is  full  of  interesting 
story. 

He  had  one  of  those  long  Irish  faces,  all  in  a  straight 
line,  with  flat,  slightly  hollow  cheeks,  and  a  long  chin.  It 
was  clean  shaven,  and  a  heavy  lock  of  black  hair  was  al- 
ways falling  over  his  eyes.  It  was  his  eyes  that  gave  its 


EVELYN  INNES.  1G3 

sombre  ecstatic  character  to  his  face.  They  were  large, 
dark,  deeply  set,  singularly  shaped,  and  they  seemed  to 
smoulder  like  fires  in  caves,  leaping  and  sinking  out  of  the 
darkness.  He  was  a  tall,  thin  young  man,  and  he  wore  a 
black  jacket  and  a  large,  blue  necktie,  tied  with  the  ends 
hanging  loose  over  his  coat.  Evelyn  received  him  effusive- 
ly, stretching  both  hands  to  him  and  telling  him  she  was 
so  glad  he  had  come.  She  said  she  was  delighted  with  his 
melodies,  and  would  sing  them  as  soon  as  she  got  an  oc- 
casion. But  he  did  not  seem  as  pleased  as  he  should  have 
done;  and  sitting,  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  floor — now  and 
then  he  muttered  a  word  of  thanks.  His  silence  em- 
barrassed her,  and  she  felt  suddenly  that  the  talk  which  she 
had  been  looking  forward  to  would  be  a  failure,  and  she 
almost  wished  him  out  of  her  box.  Neither  had  spoken 
for  some  time,  and,  to  break  an  awkward  silence,  she  said 
that  she  had  been  that  morning  at  St.  Joseph's.  He  looked 
up;  their  eyes  met  unexpectedly,  and  she  seemed  to  read 
an  impertinence  in  his  eyes;  they  seemed  to  say,  "  I  wonder 
how  you  dared  go  there!  "  But  his  words  contradicted  the 
idea  which  she  thought  she  had  read  in  his  eyes.  lie  asked 
her  at  once  eagerly  and  sympathetically  if  she  had  seen  her 
father.  No,  he  was  not  there,  and  growing  suddenly  shy, 
the  sought  to  change  the  conversation. 

"  You  are  not  a  Roman  Catholic,  I  think.  ...  I  know 
you  were  bom  a  Catholic,  but  from  something  you  said 
the  other  day  I  was  led  to  think  that  you  did  not  believe." 

"  I  cannot  think  what  I  could  have  said  to  give  you 
such  an  idea.  Most  people  reproach  me  for  believing  too 
much." 

"  The  other  day  you  spoke  of  the  ancient  gods  Angus 
and  Lir,  and  the  great  mother  Dana,  as  of  real  gods." 

"  Of  course  I  spoke  of  them  as  real  gods ;  I  am  a  Celt, 
and  they  are  real  gods  to  me." 

Now  his  face  had  lighted  up,  and  in  clear,  harmonious 
voice  he  was  arguing  that  the  gods  of  a  nation  cannot  die 
to  that  nation  until  it  be  incorporated  and  lost  in  another 
nation." 

"  I  don't  see  how  you  reconcile  Angus  and  Lir  with 
Christianity,  that  is  all." 

"  But  I  don't  try  to  reconcile  them;  they  do  not  need 
reconciliation ;  all  the  gods  are  part  of  one  faith." 


1G4:  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  But  what  do  you  believe  .  .  .  seriously  ? " 

"  Everything  except  Atheism,  and  unthinking  content- 
ment. I  believe  in  Christianity,  but  I  am  not  so  foolish  as 
to  limit  myself  to  Christianity;  I  look  upon  Christianity 
as  part  of  the  truth,  but  not  the  whole  truth.  There  is  a 
continuous  revelation:  before  Christ  Buddha,  before  Bud- 
dha Krishna,  who  was  crucified  in  mid-heaven,  and  the 
Gods  of  my  race  live  too." 

She  longed  to  ask  Ulick  so  many  questions  that  she 
could  not  frame  one,  so  far  had  the  idea  of  a  continuous 
revelation  carried  her  beyond  the  limits  of  her  habitual 
thoughts;  and  while  she  was  trying  to  think  out  his  mean- 
ing in  one  direction,  she  lost  a  great  deal  of  what  he  said 
subsequently,  and  her  face  wore  an  eager,  puzzled  and  dis- 
appointed look.  That  she  should  have  been  the  subject 
of  this  young  man's  thoughts,  that  she  should  have 
suggested  his  opera  of  Grania,  and  that  he  should  have 
at  last  succeeded,  by  means  of  an  old  photograph,  in  im- 
agining some  sort  of  image  of  her,  flattered  her  inmost 
vanity,  and  with  still  brightening  eyes  she  hoped  that  he 
was  not  disappointed  in  her. 

"  When  did  you  begin  to  write  opera?  You  must  come 
to  see  me.  You  will  tell  me  about  your  opera,  and  we  will 
go  through  the  music." 

"  Will  you  let  me  play  my  music  to  you  ? " 

"Yes,  I  shall  be  delighted." 

At  that  moment  she  remarked  that  Ulick's  teeth  were 
almost  the  most  beautiful  she  had  ever  seen,  and  that  they 
shone  like  snow  in  his  dark  face. 

"  Some  afternoon  at  the  end  of  the  week.  We're 
friends — I  feel  that  we  are.  You  are  father's  friend;  you 
were  his  friend  when  I  was  away.  Tell  me  if  he  mi  — >-d  me 
vi TV  much.  Tell  me  about  him.  I  have  been  lonrim;  to 
ask  you  all  the  time.  What  is  he  doing?  1  have  heard 
about  his  choir.  He  has  got  some  wonderful  treble  voices." 

"  He  is  very  busy  now  rehearsing  the  '  Missa  Brevis.' 
It  will  be  given  next  Sunday.  It  will  be  splendidly  done. 
.  .  .  You  ought  to  come  to  hear  it." 

"  I  should  like  to,  of  course,  but  I  am  not  certain  that  I 
shall  be  able  to  go  to  St.  Joseph's  next  Sunday.  How  did 
you  and  father  become  acquainted?  " 

"  Through  an  article  I  wrote  about  the  music  of  St. 


EVELYN  INNES.  1G5 

Joseph's.  Mr.  Inncs  said  that  it  was  written  by  a  musician, 
and  he  wrote  to  the  paper." 

"  Asking  you  to  come  to  see  him  ?  " 

"  Yes.  Your  father  was  the  first  friend  I  made  in  Lon- 
don." 

"  And  that  was  some  years  ago  ? " 

"  About  four  years  ago.  I  had  come  over  from  Ireland 
with  a  few  pounds  in  my  pocket,  and  a  portmanteau  full  of 
music,  which  I  soon  found  no  one  wanted." 

"  You  had  written  music  before  you  had  met  father  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  was  organist  at  St.  Patrick's  in  Dublin  for 
nearly  three  years.  There's  no  one  like  your  father,  Miss 
limes." 

"No  one,  is  there?"  she  replied  enthusiastically. 
"  There's  no  one  like  him.  I'm  so  glad  you  are  friends. 
You  see  him  nearly  every  day,  and  you  show  him  all  your 
music."  Then  after  a  pause,  she  said,  "  Tell  me,  did  he 
miss  me  very  much  ?  " 

"Yes,  he  missed  you,  of  course.  But  he  felt  that  you 
were  not  wholly  to  blame." 

"  And  you  took  my  place.  I  can  see  it  all.  It  was 
father  and  son,  instead  of  father  and  daughter.  How  well 
VM u  must  have  got  on  together!  What  talks  you  must  have 
had !  " 

The  silence  was  confidential,  and  though  they  both  were 
thinking  of  Mr.  limes,  they  seemed  to  become  intimately 
aware  of  each  oilier. 

"  But  may  I  venture  to  advise  you?  " 

"Yes.     What?" 

"  I'm  sure  you  ought  to  go  and  sec  him,  or  at  least  write 
to  him  saying  you'd  like  to  see  him." 

"I  know — I  know — I  must  go.  He'll  forgive  me;  he 
must  forgive  me.  But  I  wish  it  were  over.  I'm  afraid  you 
think  me  very  cowardly.  You  will  not  say  you  have  seen 
me.  You  promise  me  to  say  nothing." 

Ulick  gave  her  the  required  promise,  and  she  asked  him 
again  to  come  to  see  her. 

"  I  want  you,"  she  said,  "  to  go  through  Isolde's  music 
with  me." 

"  Do  you  think  I  can  tell  you  anything  about  the  music 
you  don't  know  already?" 

"  Yes,  I  think  you  can.     You  tell  me  things  about  my- 


106  EVELYN  INNES. 

self  that  I  did  not  know.  I  hardly  knew  that  I  acted  as  you 
describe  in  Margaret.  I  hope  I  did,  for  I  seemed  very  good 
in  your  article.  I  read  it  over  again  this  morning  in  bod. 
But  tell  me,  did  father  come  ? " 

"  You  must  not  press  me  to  answer  that  question.  My 
advice  to  you  is  to  go  and  see  your  father.  He  will  tell 
you  what  he  thought  of  your  singing  if  he  came  here.  .  .  . 
The  act  is  over,"  he  said  suddenly,  and  he  seemed  glad  of 
the  interruption.  "  I  wonder  what  your  Elizabeth  will  be 
like?" 

"What  do  you  think?" 

"  You're  a  clever  woman ;  you  will  no  doubt  arrive  at  a 
very  logical  and  clear  conception  of  the  part,  but — 

"  But  we  cannot  act  what  is  not  in  us.  Is  that  what 
you  were  going  to  say  ?  " 

"  Something  like  that." 

"  You  think  I  shall  arrive  at  a  logical  and  clear  concep- 
tion. Is  that  the  way  you  think  I  arrived  at  my  Margaret? 
Diil  it  look  like  that?  I  may  play  the  part  of  Elizabeth 
badly,  but  I  shan't  play  it  as  you  think  I  shall.  This  frock 
is  against  me.  I've  a  mind  to  send  you  away." 


XV. 

INSTEAD  of  rushing  wildly  from  side  to  side  according 
to  custom,  she  advanced  timidly,  absorbed  in  deep  memory; 
at  every  glance  her  face  expressed  a  recollection;  she 
seemed  to  alternate  between  a  vague  dread  and  an  uncon- 
querable delight;  she  seemed  like  a  dim  sky  filled  with  an 
inner  radiance,  but  for  a  time  it  seemed  uncertain  which 
would  prevail — sunlight  or  shadow.  But  like  the  sunlight, 
joy  burst  forth,  scattering  uncertainty  and  alarm,  illumi- 
nating life  from  end  to  end;  and  her  emotion  vented  itself 
in  cries  of  April  melody,  and  all  the  barren  stage  seemed  in 
flower  about  her;  she  stood  like  a  bird  on  a  branch  singing 
the  spring  time.  And  she  sang  every  note  with  the  same 
ease,  each  was  equally  round  and  clear,  but  what  delighted 
Ulick  was  the  perfect  dramatic  expression  of  her  singing. 
Tt  scorned  to  him  that  he  was  really  listening  1<>  a  vrv 


EVELYN  1NNES.  167 

young  girl  who  had  just  heard  of  the  return  of  a  man  whom 
she  had  loved  or  might  have  loved.  A  bud  last  night  slept 
close  curled  in  virginal  strictness,  with  the  morning  light 
it  awoke  a  rose.  But  the  core  of  the  rose  is  still  hidden 
from  the  light,  only  the  outer  leaves  know  it,  and  so  Eliza- 
beth is  pure  in  her  first  aspiration;  she  rejoices  as  the  lark 
rejoices  in  the  sky,  without  desiring  to  possess  the  sky. 
Ulick  could  not  explain  to  himself  the  obsession  of  this 
singing;  he  was  thrall  to  the  sensation  of  a  staid  German 
princess  of  the  tenth  century,  and  the  wearing  of  a  large 
hat  with  ostrich  feathers,  and  tied  with  a  blue  veil,  hindered 
no  whit  of  it.  And  the  tailor-made  dress  and  six  years  of 
liaison  with  Owen  Asher  were  no  let  to  the  mediaeval  virgin 
formulated  in  antique  custom.  In  the  duet  with  Tann- 
hiiuser  she  was  benign  and  forgiving,  the  divine  penitent 
who,  having  no  sins  of  her  own  to  do  penance  for,  does 
penance  for  the  sins  of  others. 

It  was  then  that  Ulick  began  to  understand  the  secret 
of  Evelyn's  acting;  in  Elizabeth  she  had  gone  back  to  the 
Dulwich  days  before  she  knew  Asher,  and  was  acting  what 
she  then  felt  and  thought.  She  believed  she  was  living 
again  with  her  father,  and  so  intense  was  her  conviction 
that  it  evoked  the  externals.  Even  her  age  vanished;  she 
was  but  eighteen,  a  virgin  whose  sole  reality  has  been  her 
father  and  her  chatelaine,  and  whose  visions  of  the  world 
was,  till  now,  a  mere  decoration — sentinels  on  the  draw- 
bridge, hunters  assembling  on  the  hillside,  pictures  hardly 
more  real  to  her  than  those  she  weaves  on  her  tapestry 
loom. 

Ulick  leaned  out  of  the  box  and  applauded;  he  dared 
even  to  cry  encore,  and,  following  suit,  the  musicians  laid 
aside  their  instruments  and,  standing  up  in  the  orchestra, 
applauded  with  him,  The  conductor  tapped  approval  with 
his  stick  011  the  little  harmonium,  the  chorus  at  the  back 
cried  encore.  It  was  a  curious  scene;  these  folk,  whose 
one  idea  at  rehearsal  is  to  get  it  over  as  soon  as  possible, 
conniving  at  their  own  retention  in  the  theatre. 

The  applause  of  her  fellow  artists  delighted  her;  she 
bowed  to  the  orchestra,  and,  turning  to  the  chorus,  said 
that  she  would  be  pleased  to  sing  the  duet  again  if  they  did 
not  mind  the  delay;  and  coming  down  the  stage  and  stand- 
ing iii  front  of  the  box,  she  said  to  Ulick — 


1G8  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  Well,  arc  you  satisfied  ?  ...  Is  that  your  idea  of 
Elizabeth?" 

"  So  far  as  we  have  gone,  yes,  but  I  shall  not  know  if 
your  Elizabeth  is  my  Elizabeth  until  I  have  heard  the  end 
of  the  act." 

Turning  to  Mr.  Hermann  Goetze,  she  said — 

"  Mr.  Dean  has  very  distinct  ideas  how  this  part  should 
be  played." 

"  Mr.  Dean,"  answered  the  manager,  laughing,  "  would 
not  go  to  Bayreuth  three  years  ago  because  they  played 
'  Tannhiiuser.'  But  one  evening  he  took  the  score  down  to 
read  the  new  music,  and  to  his  surprise  he  found  that  it  was 
the  old  that  interested  him.  Mr.  Dean  is  always  making 
discoveries;  he  discovers  all  my  singers  after  he  has  heard 
them." 

"And  Mr.  Hermann  Goetze  discovers  his  singers  be- 
fore he  has  heard  them,"  cried  Ulick. 

Mr.  Hermann  Goetze  looked  for  a  moment  as  if  he  were 
going  to  get  angry,  but  remembering  that  Dean  was  critic 
to  an  important  weekly,  he  laughed  and  put  his  handker- 
chief to  his  jaw,  and  Evelyn  went  up  the  stage  to  meet 
the  Landgrave — her  father — and  she  sang  a  duet  with  him. 
As  soon  as  it  was  concluded,  the  introduction  to  the  march 
brought  the  first  courtiers  and  pages  on  the  stage,  and 
with  the  first  strains  of  the  march  the  assembly,  whidi 
had  been  invited  to  witness  the  competitions,  was  seated  in 
the  circular  benches  ranged  round  the  throne  of  the  Land- 
grave and  his  daughter. 

Having  consulted  with  his  stage  manager  and  super- 
intended some  alterations  in  the  stage  arrangements,  Mr. 
Hermann  Goetze,  whose  toothache  seemed  a  little  better 
again,  left  the  stage,  and  coming  into  the  box  where  Ulick 
was  sitting,  he  sat  behind  him  and  affected  some  interest,  in 
his  opinion  regarding  the  grouping,  for  it  had  occurred  to 
him  that  if  Evelyn  should  take  a  fancy  to  this  young  man 
nothing  was  more  likely  than  that  she  should  ask  to  have 
his  opera  produced.  With  the  plot  and  some  of  the  music 
he  was  already  vaguely  acquainted;  and  he  had  gathered, 
in  a  general  way,  tlmt  Flick  Dean  w;is  considered  to  be  a 
man  of  talent.  The  British  public  might  demand  a  new 
opera,  and  there  had  been  some  talk  of  Celtic  genius  in  the 
newspapers  lately.  Dean's  "Grania"  might  make  an  ad- 


EVELYN  INNES.  1G9 

mirablc  diversion  in  the  Wagnerian  repertoire — only  it 
must  not  be  too  anti-Wagnerian.  Mr.  Goetze  prided  him- 
self on  being  in  the  movement.  Now,  if  Evelyn  Innes 
would  sing  the  title  role,  "  Grania  "  was  the  very  thing  he 
wanted.  And  in  such  a  frame  of  mind,  he  listened  to 
Ulick  Dean.  He  was  glad  that  "  Grania  "  was  based  on  a 
legend;  Wagner  had  shown  that  an  opera  could  not  be 
written  except  on  a  legendary  basis.  The  Irish  legends 
were  just  the  thing  the  public  was  prepared  to  take  an  in- 
terest in.  But  there  was  one  thing  he  feared — that  there 
were  no  motives. 

"  Tell  me  more  about  the  music  ?  It  is  not  like  the 
opera  you  showed  me  a  year  or  two  ago  in  which  instead 
of  motives  certain  instruments  introduce  the  characters? 
There  is  nothing  Gregorian  about  this  new  work,  is 
there?" 

"  Nothing,"  Ulick  answered,  smiling  contemptuously — 
"  nothing  recognisable  to  uneducated  ears." 

"  Plenty  of  chromatic  writing  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  think  I  can  assure  you  that  there  is  plenty  of 
modulation,  some  unresolved  dissonances.  I  suppose  that 
that  is  what  you  want.  Alas,  there  are  not  many  motives." 

"Ah!" 

Ulick  waited  to  be  asked  if  he  could  not  introduce  some. 
But  at  that  moment  Tiiimhauser's  avowal  of  the  joys  he  had 
experienced  with  Venus  in  Mount  Horsel  had  shocked  the 
Landgrave's  pious  court.  The  dames  and  the  wives  of  the 
burgesses  had  hastened  away,  leaving  their  husbands  to 
avenge  the  affront  offered  to  their  modesty.  The  knights 
drew  their  swords;  it  was  the  moment  when  Elizabeth  runs 
down  the  steps  of  the  throne  and  demands  mercy  from  her 
father  for  the  man  she  loves.  The  idea  of  this  scene  was 
very  dear  to  Ulick,  and  his  whole  attention  was  fixed  on 
Evelyn. 

He  was  only  attracted  by  essential  ideas,  and  the  myste- 
rious expectancy  of  the  virgin  awaiting  the  approach  of  the 
man  she  loves  was  surely  the  essential  spirit  of  life — the 
ultimate  meaning  of  things.  The  comedy  of  existence,  the 
habit  of  life  worn  in  different  ages  of  the  world  had  no 
interest  for  him;  it  was  the  essential  that  he  sought  and 
wished  to  put  upon  the  stage — the  striving  and  yearning, 
and  then  the  inevitable  acceptation  of  the  burden  of  life; 


170  EVELYN  INNES. 

in  other  words,  the  entrance  into  the  life  of  resignation. 
That  was  what  he  sought  in  his  own  operas,  and  from  this 
ideal  he  had  never  wavered;  all  other  art  but  this  essential 
art  was  indifferent  to  him.  It  was  no  longer  the  beautiful 
writing  of  Wagner's  later  works  that  attracted  him;  he 
deemed  this  one  to  be,  perhaps,  the  finest,  being  the  sincer- 
est,  and  "  Parsifal "  the  worst,  being  the  most  hypocritical. 
Elizabeth  was  the  essential  penitent,  she  who  does  penance 
not  for  herself,  she  has  committed  no  sin,  but  the  sublime 
penitent  who  does  penance  for  the  sins  of  others.  Not  for 
a  moment  could  he  admit  the  penitence  of  Kundry.  In 
her  there  was  merely  the  external  aspect.  "  Parsifal "  was 
to  Ulick  a  revolting  hypocrisy,  and  Kundry  the  blot  on 
Wagner's  life.  In  the  first  act  she  is  a  sort  of  wild  witch, 
not  very  explicit  to  any  intelligence  that  probes  below  the 
surface.  In  the  second,  she  is  a  courtesan  with  black  dia- 
monds. In  the  third  she  wears  the  coarse  habit  of  a  peni- 
tent, and  her  waist  is  tied  with  a  cord;  but  her  repentance 
goes  no  further  than  these  exterior  signs.  She  says  no 
word,  and  Ulick  could  not  accept  the  descriptive  rnusic  as 
sufficient  explanation  of  her  repentance,  even  if  it  wen: 
sincere,  which  it  was  not,  and  he  spoke  derisively  of  the 
amorous  cries  to  be  heard  at  every  moment  in  the  orchestra,' 
while  she  is  dragging  herself  to  Parsifal's  feet.  Elizabeth's 
prayer  was  to  him  a  perfect  expression  of  a  penitent  soul. 
Kundry,  he  pointed  out,  had  no  such  prayer,  and  he  de- 
risively sang  the  cries  of  amorous  desire.  The  character 
of  Parsifal  he  could  admit  even  less  than  the  character  of 
Kundry.  As  he  would  say  in  discussion,  "  If  I  am  to  dis- 
cuss an  artistic  question,  I  mu"t  go  to  the  very  heart  of  it. 
Now,  if  we  ask  ourselves  what  Siegfried  did,  the  answer  is, 
that  he  forged  the  sword,  killed  the  dragon  and  released 
Brunnhilde.  But  if,  in  like  manner,  we  ask  ourselves  what 
Parsifal  did,  is  not  the  answer,  that  he  killed  a  swan  and 
refused  a  kiss  and  with  many  morbid,  suggestive  and  dis- 
agreeable remarks?  These  are  the  facts,"  he  would  say; 
"  confute  them  who  may,  explain  them  who  can !  "  And 
if  it  were  urged,  as  it  often  was,  that  in  Parsifal  Wagner 
desired  the  very  opposite  to  what  he  had  in  Siegfried,  that 
Parsifal  is  opposed  to  Siegfried  as  Hamlet  is  opposed  to 
Othello,  Ulick  eagerly  accepted  the  ehallenge,  and,  like  one 
sure  of  his  adversary's  life,  began  the  attack. 


EVELYN  INNES.  1V1 

Wagner  had  been  all  his  life  dreaming  of  an  opera  \vith 
a  subjective  hero.  Christ  first  and  then  Buddha  had  sug- 
gested themselves  as  likely  subjects.  He  had  gone  so  far 
as  to  make  sketches  for  both  heroes,  but  both  subjects  had 
been  rejected  as  unpractical,  and  he  had  fallen  back  on  a 
pretty  mediaeval  myth,  and  had  shot  into  a  pretty  mediaeval 
myth  all  the  material  he  had  accumulated  for  the  other 
dramas,  whose  heroes  were  veritable  heroes,  men  who  had 
accomplished  great  things,  men  who  had  preached  great 
doctrines  and  whose  lives  were  symbols  of  their  doctrines. 
The  result  of  pouring  this  old  wine  into  the  new  bottle 
was  to  burst  the  bottle. 

In  neither  Christ  nor  Buddha  did  the  question  of  sex 
arise,  and  that  was  the  reason  that  Wagner  eventually  re- 
jected both.  He  was  as  full  of  sex — mysterious,  subcon- 
scious sex — as  Ilossetti  himself.  In  Christ's  life  there  is 
the  Magdalen,  but  how  naturally  harmonious,  how  implicit 
in  the  idea,  arc  their  relations,  how  concentric;  but  how 
excentric  (using  the  word  in  its  grammatical  sense)  are 
the  relations  of  Parsifal  to  Kundry.  ...  A  redeemer  is 
rhuste,  but  he  does  not  speak  of  his  chastity  nor  does  he 
think  of  it;  he  passes  the  question  by.  The  figure  of 
Christ  is  so  noble,  that  whether  God  or  man  or  both,  it 
seems  to  us  in  harmony  that  the  Magdalen  should  bathe 
his  feet  and  wipe  them  with  her  hair,  but  the  introduction 
of  the  same  incident  into  "  Parsifal "  revolts.  As  Parsifal 
merely  killed  a  swan  and  refused  to  be  kissed — the  other 
preached  a  doctrine  in  which  beauty  and  wisdom  touch 
the  highest  point,  and  his  life  was  an  exemplification  of 
his  doctrine  of  non-resistance. 

In  "  Parsifal "  there  was  only  the  second  act  which  he 
could  admire  without  enormous  reservations.  The  writing 
in  the  chorus  of  the  "Flower  Maidens"  was,  of  course, 
irresistible — litle  cries,  meaningless  by  themselves,  but, 
when  brought  together,  they  created  an  enchanted  garden, 
marvellous  and  seductive.  But  it  was  the  duet  that  fol- 
lowed that  compelled  his  admiration.  Music  hardly  ever 
more  than  a  recitative,  hardly  ever  breaking  into  an  air. 
and  yet  so  beautiful !  There  the  notes  merely  served  to 
lift  the  words,  to  impregnate  them  with  more  terrible  and 
subtle  meaning;  and  the  subdued  harmonies  enfolded  them 
in  an  atmosphere,  a  sensual  mood;  and  in  this  music  we 


172  EVELYN  INNES. 

sink  into  depths  of  soul  and  float  upon  sullen  and  mys- 
terious tides  of  life — those  which  roll  beneath  the  phase  of 
life  which  we  call  existence.  But  the  vulgarly  vaunted 
Good  Friday  music  did  not  deceive  him;  at  the  second  or 
third  time  of  hearing  he  had  perceived  its  insincerity.  It 
was  very  beautiful  music,  but  in  such  a  situation  sincerity 
was  essential.  The  airs  of  this  mock  redeemer  were  truly 
unbearable,  and  the  abjection  of  Kundry  before  this  stuffed 
Christ  revolted  him.  But  the  obtusely  religious  could  not 
fail  to  be  moved;  the  appeal  of  the  chaste  kiss  could  not 
but  stir  the  vulgar  heart  to  infinite  delight,  and  the  art 
was  so  dexterously  beautiful  that  the  intelligent  were  de- 
ceived. The  artist  and  the  vulgarian  held  each  other's 
hands  for  the  first  time;  they  gasped  a  mutual  wonder  at 
their  own  perception  and  their  unsuspected  nobility  of  soul. 
"  Parsifal,"  he  declared,  with  true  Celtic  love  of  exagger- 
ation, "  to  be  the  oiliest  flattery  ever  poured  down  the  open 
throat  of  a  liquorish  humanity." 

As  he  spoke  such  sentences  his  face  would  light  up 
with  malicious  humour,  and  he  was  so  interested  in  the 
subject  he  discussed  that  his  listener  was  forced  to  follow 
him.  It  was  only  in  such  moments  of  artistic  discussion 
that  his  real  soul  floated  up  to  the  surface,  and  he,  as  it 
were,  achieved  himself.  lie  knew,  too,  how  to  play  with 
his  listener,  to  wheedle  and  beguile  him,  for  after  a  par- 
ticularly aggressive  phrase  he  would  drop  into  a  minor 
key,  and  his  criticism  would  suddenly  become  serious  and 
illuminative.  To  him  "  Parsifal "  was  a  fresco,  a  decora- 
tion painted  by  a  man  whose  true  genius  it  was  to  reveal 
the  most  intimate  secrets  of  the  soul,  to  tell  the  enigmatic 
soul  of  longing  as  Leonardo  da  Vinci  had  done.  But  lui 
had  been  led  from  the  true  path  of  his  genius  into  the  false 
one  of  a  rivalry  with  Veronese.  Only  where  Wagner  is 
confiding  a  soul's  secret  is  he  interesting,  and  in  "Taim- 
hiiuser,"  in  this  first  flower  of  his  dramatic  and  musical 
genius,  he  had  perhaps  told  the  story  of  his  own  soul  more 
truly,  more  sincerely  than  elsewhere.  To  do  that  was  the 
highest  art.  Sooner  or  later  the  sublimest  imaginations 
pale  before  the  simple  telling  of  a  personal  truth,  for 
the  most  personal  truth  is  likewise  the  most  universal. 
"  Titnnhauscr  "  is  the  story  of  hum:mity.  f<>r  what  is  the 
human  story  if  it  isn't  the  pursuit  of  an  ideal? 


EVELYN  INNES.  173 

And  this  essential  and  primal  truth  Evelyn  revealed  to 
him,  and  the  very  spirit  and  sense  of  maidenhood,  the  cen- 
tre and  receptacle  of  life,  the  mysterious  secret  of  things, 
the  awful  moment  when  the  whisper  of  the  will  to  live  is 
heard  in  matter,  the  will  which  there  is  no  denying,  the 
surrender  of  matter,  the  awaking  of  consciousness  in 
things.  And  united  to  the  eternal  idea  of  generation,  he 
perceived  the  congenital  idea  which  in  remotest  time  seems 
to  have  sprung  from  it — that  life  is  sin  and  must  be  atoned 
for  by  prayer.  Evelyn's  interpretation  revealed  his  deep- 
est ideas  to  himself,  and  at  last  he  seemed  to  stand  at  the 
heart  of  life. 

Suddenly  his  rapture  was  broken  through;  the  singer 
had  stopped  the  orchestra. 

"  You  have  cut  some  of  the  music,  I  see,"  she  said,  ad- 
dressing the  conductor. 

"  Only  the  usual  cut,  Miss  Innes." 

"  About  twenty  pages,  I  should  think." 

The  conductor  counted  them. 

"  Eighteen." 

"  Miss  Innes,  that  cut  has  been  accepted  everywhere — 
Munich,  Berlin,  Wiesbaden — everywhere  except  Bayreuth." 

"  But,  Mr.  Hermann  Goetze,  my  agreement  with  you 
is  that  the  operas  I  sing  in  are  to  be  performed  in  their 
entirety." 

"In  their  entirety;  that  is  to  say,  well — taken  literally, 
I  suppose — that  the  phrase  '  in  their  entirety '  could  be 
held  to  mean  without  cuts;  but  surely,  regarding  this  par- 
ticular cut — I  may  say  that  I  spoke  to  Sir  Owen  about  it, 
and  he  agreed  with  me  that  it  was  impossible  to  get  people 
into  the  theatre  in  London  before  half-past  seven." 

"  But,  Mr.  Hermann  Goetze,  your  agreement  is  with  me, 
not  with  Sir  Owen  Asher." 

"  Quite  so,  Miss  Innes,  but " 

"  If  people  don't  care  sufficiently  for  art  to  dine  half- 
an-hour  earlier,  they  had  better  stay  away." 

"  But  you  see,  Miss  Innes,  you're  not  in  the  first  act ; 
there  are  the  other  artistes  to  consider.  The  '  Venusberg ' 
will  be  sung  to  empty  benches  if  you  insist." 

It  seemed  for  a  moment  as  if  Mr.  Hermann  Goetze  was 
going  to  have  his  way;  and  ITlick,  while  praying  that  she 
might  remain  firm,  recognised  how  adroitly  Hermann 


174  EVELYN  INNES. 

Coetze  had  contrived  to  place  her  in  a  false  position  regard- 
ing her  fellow  artistes. 

"I  am  quite  willing  to  throw  up  the  part;  I  can  only 
sing  the  opera  as  it  is  written." 

The  conductor  suggested  a  less  decisive  cut  to  Evelyn, 
and  Mr.  Hermann  Goetze  walked  up  and  down  the  starts 
overtaken  by  toothache.  His  agony  was  so  complete  that 
Evelyn's  harshness  yielded.  She  went  to  him,  and,  her 
hand  laid  commiseratingly  on  his  arm,  she  begged  him  to 
go  at  once  to  the  dentist. 

Then  some  of  the  musicians  said  that  they  could  hardly 
read  the  music,  so  effectually  had  they  scratched  it 
out. 

"  If  the  musicians  cannot  play  the  music,  we  had  better 
go  home,"  said  Evelyn. 

"  But  the  opera  is  announced  for  to-morrow  night,"  Mr. 
Hermann  Goetze  replied  dolefully. 

Mr.  Wheeler  suggested  that  they  might  go  on  with  the 
rehearsal;  the  cut  could  be  discussed  afterwards.  Groups 
formed,  everyone  had  a  different  opinion.  At  last  the  n  in- 
ductor took  up  his  stick  and  cried,  "  Number  105,  please." 

"  They  are  going  back,"  thought  Ulick ;  "  she  held  her 
ground  capitally.  She  has  more  strength  of  character  than 
I  thought.  But  Hermann  Goetze  has  upset  her;  she  won't 
be  able  to  sing." 

And  it  was  as  he  expected;  she  could  not  recapture  her 
lost  inspiration;  mood,  Ulick  could  see,  was  the  foundation 
and  the  keystone  of  her  art. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  I  sang  i  t  horribly,  I  am  all  out  of  sorts, 
I  don't  feel  what  I  am  singing,  and  when  the  mood  is  not. 
upon  me,  I  am  atrocious.  What  annoyed  me  was  his  at- 
tributing such  selfishness  to  me,  and  sudi  vulgar  selfish- 
ness, too — 

"  However,  you  had  your  way  about  the  cut." 

"Yes,  they'll  have  to  sing  the  whole  of  the  finale.  Tint 
I  am  sorry  about  his  tooth;  1  know  that  it  is  dreadful 
pain." 

Ulick  told  an  amusing  story  how  he  had  once  called 
on  Hermann  Goetze  to  ask  if  he  had  read  the  book  of  his 
opera. 

"  He'd  just  gone  into  an  adjoining  room  to  fetch  a 
clothes-brush — he'd  taken  off  his  coat  to  brush  it — but  the 


EVELYN  1NNES.  175 

moment  he  saw  me,  he  whipped  out  his  handkerchief  and 
said  that  he  must  go  to  the  dentist." 

"  And  when  I  asked  him  to  engage  Helbrun  to  sing 
Brangane,  and  give  her  eighty  pounds  a  week  if  she 
wouldn't  sing  it  for  less,  he  whipped  out  his  handkerchief 
as  you  say,  and  asked  me  if  I  knew  a  dentist." 

"  The  idea  of  Wagner  without  cuts  always  brings  on  a 
violent  attack,"  and  TJlick  imitated  so  well  the  expression 
of  agony  that  had  come  into  the  manager's  face  that  Eve- 
lyn exploded  with  laughter.  She  begged  TJlick  to  desist. 

"  I  sha'n't  be  able  to  sing  at  all.  But  I  have  not  told 
you  of  my  make  up.  I  don't  look  at  all  pretty;  the  ugly 
curls  I  wear  come  from  an  old  German  print,  and  the  staid, 
modest  gown.  But  it  is  very  provoking ;  I  was  singing  well 
till  that  fiend  began  to  argue.  Don't  make  me  laugh  again." 

He  became  very  grave. 

"  I  can  only  think  of  the  joy  you  gave  me." 

His  praise  brightened  her  face,  and  she  listened. 

"I  cannot  tell  you  now  what  I  feel;  perhaps  I  shall 
never  find  words  to  express  what  I  feel  about  your  Eliza- 
beth. I  shall  be  writing  about  it  next  week,  and  shall  have 
to  try." 

"  Do  tell  me  now.  You  liked  it  better  than  my  Mar- 
garet?" 

Ulick  shrugged  his  shoulders  contemptuously,  and  they 
looked  in  each  other's  eyes,  and  could  hardly  speak,  so  ex- 
traordinary was  their  recognition  of  each  other;  it  was  so 
intense  that  they  could  hardly  help  laughing,  so  strange  it 
seemed  that  they  should  never  have  met  before,  or  should 
have  been  separated  for  such  a  long  time.  It  really  seemed 
to  them  as  if  they  had  known  each  other  from  all  eternity. 

"How  can  you  act  Elizabeth,  she  is  so  different  from 
what  vou  are  ?  " 

"Is  she?" 

Her  pale  blue  eyes  seemed  to  open  a  little  wider,  and 
she  looked  at  him  searchingly.  He  could  not  keep  back  the 
words  that  rose  to  his  tongue. 

"  You  mean  that  your  dead  life  now  lives  in  Elizabeth." 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  that  that  is  it." 

They  asked  each  other  whether  any  part  of  one's  nature 
is  ever  really  dead. 

A  few  moments  after  the  pilgrims  were  heard  singing, 
12 


176  EVELYN  INXES. 

and  Evelyn  would  have  to  go  on  the  stage.  She  pressed 
her  hands  against  her  forehead,  ridding  herself  by  an  effort 
of  will  of  her  present  individuality.  The  strenuous  chant 
of  the  pilgrims  grew  louder,  the  procession  approached,  and 
as  it  passed  across  the  stage  Elizabeth  sought  for  Tann- 
hauser,  but  he  was  not  among  them.  So  her  last  earthly 
hope  has  perished,  and  she  throws  herself  on  her  knees  at 
the  foot  of  the  wayside  cross.  And  it  was  the  anguish  of 
her  soul  that  called  forth  that  high  note,  a  G  repeated 
three  times;  and  it  seemed  to  Ulick  that  she  seemed  to 
throw  herself  upon  that  note,  that  reiterated  note,  as  if  she 
would  reach  God's  ears  with  it  and  force  him  to  listen  to 
her.  In  the  religious,  almost  Gregorian,  strain  her  voice 
was  pure  as  a  little  child,  but  when  she  spoke  of  her  re- 
nunciation and  the  music  grew  more  chromatic,  her  voice 
filled  with  colour — her  sex  appeared  in  it;  and  when  the 
music  returned  to  the  peace  of  the  religious  strain,  her 
voice  grew  blanched  and  faded  like  a  nun's  voice. 
Henceforth  her  life  will  be  lived  beyond  this  world,  and 
as  she  walked  up  the  stage,  the  flutes  and  clarionets  seemed 
to  lead  her  straight  to  God ;  they  seemed  to  depict  a  narrow, 
shining  path,  shining  and  ascending  till  it  disappeared 
amid  the  light  of  the  stars. 

"  Well,"  she  said,  "  did  I  sing  it  to  your  satisfaction  ? " 

"  You're  an  astonishing  artiste." 

"  No,  that's  just  what  I  am  not.  I  go  on  the  stage  and 
act;  I  couldn't  tell  you  how  I  do  it;  I  am  conscious  of  no 
rule." 

"  And  the  music  ?  " 

"  The  music  the  same.  I  have  often  been  told  that  I 
might  act  Shakespeare,  but  without  music  I  could  not  ex- 
press myself.  Words  without  music  would  seem  barren;  I 
never  try  to  sing,  I  try  to  express  myself.  But  you'll  see 
my  father  won't  think  much  of  my  singing.  He'll  com- 
pare me  to  mother,  and  always  to  my  disadvantage.  I  can- 
not phrase  like  her." 

"  But  you  can ;  your  phrasing  is  perfection.  It  is  the 
very  emotion " 

"  Father  won't  think  so ;  if  he  only  thought  well  of  my 
singing  he  would  forgive  me." 

"  How  unaffected  you  are ;  in  hearing  you  speak  one 
hears  your  very  soul." 


EVELYN  INXES.  177 

"  Do  you  ?  But  tell  me,  is  he  very  incensed  ?  Shall  I 
meet  a  face  of  stone  ?  " 

"  He  is  incensed,  no  doubt,  but  he  must  forgive  you. 
But  every  day's  delay  will  make  it  more  difficult." 

"  I  know,  I  know." 

"  You  cannot  go  to-morrow  ?  " 

"Why  not?" 

"To-morrow  you  sing  this  opera.  Go  on  Saturday; 
you'll  be  sure  to  find  him  on  Saturday  afternoon.  He  has 
a  rehearsal  in  the  morning  and  will  be  at  home  about  four 
in  the  afternoon." 

As  they  walked  through  the  scenery  she  said,  "  You'll 
come  to  see  me,"  and  she  reminded  him  of  his  promise  to 
go  through  the  Isolde  music  with  her. 

"  Mind,  you  have  promised,"  she  said  as  she  got  into  her 
carriage. 

"  You'll  not  forget  Saturday  afternoon,"  he  said  as  he 
shook  hands. 

She  nodded  and  put  up  her  umbrella,  for  it  was  begin- 
ninpr  to  rain. 


XVI. 

EVELYN  found  Owen  waiting  for  her.  As  soon  as  she 
came  into  the  room  he  said,  "  Well,  have  you  seen  your 
father?" 

She  was  not  expecting  him,  and  it  was  disagreeable  to 
admit  that  she  had  not  been  to  Dulwich.  So  she  said  that 
she  had  thought  to  find  her  father  at  St.  Joseph's. 

"  But  how  did  you  know  he  was  not  at  home  if  you  did 
not  go  to  Dulwich  ?  " 

"  My  gracious,  Owen,  how  you  do  question  me !  Now 
perhaps  you  would  like  to  know  which  of  the  priests  told 
me." 

She  walked  to  the  window  and  stood  with  her  left  hand 
in  the  pocket  of  her  jacket,  and  he  feared  that  the  irritation 
he  had  involuntarily  caused  her  would  interfere  with  his 
projects  for  the  afternoon.  There  passed  in  his  eyes  that 
look  of  absorption  in  an  object  which  marks  the  end  of  a 


178  EVELYN  IXNES. 

long  love  affair — a  look  charged  with  remembrance,  and 
wistful  as  an  autumn  day. 

The  earth  has  grown  weary  of  the  sun  and  turns  her- 
self into  the  shadow,  eager  for  rest.  The  sun  has  been 
too  ardent  a  lover.  But  the  gaze  of  the  sun  upon  the  re- 
ceding earth  is  fonder  than  his  look  when  she  raised  herself 
to  his  bright  face.  So  in  Owen's  autumn-haunted  eyes 
there  was  dread  of  the  chances  which  he  knew  were  ac- 
cumulating against  him — enemies,  he  divined,  were  gath- 
ering in  the  background;  and  how  he  might  guard  her, 
keep  her  for  himself,  became  a  daily  inquisition.  Noth- 
ing had  happened  to  lead  him  to  think  that  his  possession 
was  endangered,  his  fear  proceeded  from  an  instinct,  which 
he  could  not  subdue,  that  she  was  gliding  from  him;  he 
wrestled  with  the  intangible,  and,  striving  to  subordinate 
instinct  to  reason,  he  often  refrained  from  kissing  her;  he 
imitated  the  indifference  which  in  other  times  he  could  not 
dissimulate  when  the  women  who  had  really  loved  him  be- 
sought him  with  tears.  But  there  was  no  long  gainsay- 
ing of  the  delight  of  telling  her  that  he  loved  her,  and 
when  his  aching  heart  forced  him  to  question  her  regarding 
the  truth  of  her  feelings  towards  him,  she  merely  told  him 
that  she  loved  him  as  much  as  ever,  and  the  answer,  instead 
of  being  a  relief,  was  additional  fuel  upon  the  torturing 
flame  of  his  uncertainty. 

"  I  want  you,"  he  said,  "  if  you  can  find  the  time,  to 
come  this  afternoon  to  look  at  some  furniture.  I've  found 
a  magnificent  satin-wood  Sheraton  sideboard,  most  nobly 
designed,  deeply  curved,  with  the  vases,  the  pointed  urns, 
also  in  satin-wood,  on  either  side.  Can  you  come  ? " 

"  I'd  like  to  see  it,  Owen ;  I  love  old  furniture,  but  I 
mustn't  let  you  give  me  any  more  presents;  you've  given 
me  too  much  already — I'm  sure  the  sideboard  you  describe 
must  cost  two  hundred  pounds." 

She  saw  that  her  answer  disappointed  him,  and  sat  by 
him  on  the  sofa. 

"  I'm  afraid  I  annoyed  you  just  now  by  asking  too  many 
questions.  I  really  didn't  mean " 

"  I  know,  dear ;  never  mind.     Come  down  to  lunch." 

"  I  Tow  did  the  rehearsal  go  off?  Whom  did  you  see 
there?" 

She  told  him  at  considerable  length,  omitting,  somehow, 


EVELYN  IXXES.  179 

to  speak  of  Ulick,  and  after  lunch  she  seemed  restless  and 
proposed  to  go  out  at  once. 

As  they  drove  off  to  see  the  Sheraton  sideboard,  he  spoke 
of  Ulick  Dean,  and  to  her  great  annoyance  she  said  she  had 
not  seen  him.  This  falsehood  spoilt  her  afternoon  for  her. 
She  could  not  discover  why  she  had  told  this  lie,  and  the 
memory  rankled  in  her.  It  continued  to  take  her  unaware, 
and  she  was  tempted  to  confess  the  truth  to  Owen;  and 
the  very  words  she  thought  she  should  use  rose  up  in  her 
mind  several  times.  "  I  told  you  a  lie.  I  don't  know  why 
I  did,  for  there  was  absolutely  no  reason  why  I  should  have 
said  that  I  had  not  seen  Ulick  Dean."  Even  on  Saturday 
the  annoyance  which  this  lie  had  caused  in  her  was  as  keen 
as  ever;  it  was  not  until  she  had  got  into  her  carriage  and 
was  driving  to  Dulwich  that  her  consciousness  of  it  died 
in  the  importance  of  her  interview  with  her  father. 

In  comparing  her  present  attitude  of  mind  with  that  of 
last  Thursday,  she  was  glad  to  notice  that  to-day  she  could 
not  think  that  her  father  would  not  forgive  her.  Her  talk 
on  the  subject  with  Ulick  had  reassured  her.  He  would 
not  have  been  so  insistent  if  he  had  not  been  sure  that  her 
father  would  forgive  her  in  the  end.  But  there  would  be 
recriminations,  and  at  the  very  thought  of  them  she  felt 
her  courage  sink,  and  she  asked  herself  why  he  should 
make  her  miserable  if  he  was  going  to  forgive  her  in  the 
end.  Her  plans  were  to  talk  to  him  about  his  choir,  and, 
if  that  did  not  succeed,  to  throw  herself  on  her  knees.  She 
remembered  how  she  had  thrown  herself  on  her  knees  on 
the  morning  of  the  afternoon  she  had  gone  away.  And 
since  then  she  had  thrown  herself  at  his  feet  many  times 
— every  time  she  sang  in  the  "  Valkyrie."  The  scene  in 
which  Wotan  confides  all  his  troubles  and  forebodings  to 
Brunnhilde  had  never  been  different  from  the  long  talks 
she  and  her  father  used  to  drop  into  in  the  dim  evenings 
in  Dulwich.  She  had  cheered  him  when  he  came  home  de- 
pressed after  a  talk  with  the  impossible  Father  Gordon,  as 
she  had  since  cheered  Wotan  in  his  deep  brooding  over  the 
doom  of  the  gods  predicted  by  Wala,  when  the  dusky  foe 
of  love  should  beget  a  son  in  hate.  Wotan  had  always 
been  her  father;  Palestrina,  Walhalla,  and  the  stupid  Jes- 
uits, what  were  they?  She  had  often  tried  to  work  out  the 
allegory.  It  never  came  out  quite  right,  but  she  always 


180  EVELYN  INNES. 

felt  sure  in  setting  down  Father  Gordon  as  Alberich.  The 
scene  in  the  third  act,  when  she  throws  herself  at  Wotan's 
feet  and  begs  his  forgiveness  (the  music  and  the  words 
together  surged  upon  her  brain),  was  the  scene  that  now 
awaited  her.  •  She  had  at  last  come  to  this  long-anticipated 
scene;  and  the  fictitious  scene  she  had  acted  as  she  was 
now  going  to  act  the  real  scene.  True  that  Wotan  forgave 
Brunnhilde  after  putting  her  to  sleep  on  the  fire-sur- 
rounded rock,  where  she  should  remain  till  a  pure  hero 
should  come  to  release  her.  A  nervous  smile  curled  her  lip 
for  a  moment;  she  trembled  in  her  very  entrails,  and  as 
they  passed  down  the  long,  mean  streets  of  Camberwell  her 
thoughts  frittered  out  in  all  sorts  of  trivial  observation 
and  reflection.  She  wondered  if  the  mother  who  called 
down  the  narrow  alley  had  ever  been  in  love,  if  she  had 
ever  deceived  her  husband,  if  her  father  had  reproved  her 
about  the  young  man  she  kept  company  with-  The  milk- 
men presented  to  her  strained  mind  some  sort  of  problem, 
and  the  sight  of  the  railway  embankment  told  her  she  was 
nearing  Dulwich.  Then  she  saw  the  cedar  at  the  top  of 
the  hill,  whither  she  had  once  walked  to  meet  Owen.  .  .  . 
Now  it  was  London  nearly  all  the  way  to  Dulwich. 

But  when  they  entered  the  familiar  village  street  she 
was  surprised  at  her  dislike  of  it;  even  the  chestnut  trees, 
beautiful  with  white  bloom,  were  distasteful  to  her,  and  life 
seemed  contemptible  beneath  them.  In  Dulwich  there  was 
no  surprise — life  there  was  a  sheeted  phantom,  it  evoked  a 
hundred  dead  Evelyns,  and  she  felt  she  would  rather  live 
in  any  ghostly  graveyard  than  in  Dulwich.  Her  very 
knowledge  of  the  place  was  an  irritation  to  her,  and  she 
was  pleased  when  she  saw  a  house  which  had  been  built 
since  she  had  been  away.  But  every  one  of  the  fields  she 
knew  well,  and  the  sight  of  every  tree  recalled  a  dead  day, 
a  dead  event.  That  road  to  the  right  led  to  the  picture 
gallery,  and  at  the  cross  road  she  had  been  nearly  run  over 
by  a  waggon  while  trundling  a  hoop.  But  eyesight  hardly 
helped  her  in  Dulwich;  she  had  only  to  think,  to  see  it. 
The  slates  of  a  certain  house  told  her  that  another  minute 
would  bring  her  to  her  father's  door,  and  before  the  car- 
riage turned  the  corner  she  foresaw  the  patch  of  black 
garden.  But  if  her  father  were  at  home  he  might  refuse  to 
see  her,  and  she  was  not  certain  if  she  should  force  her 


EVELYN  INNES.  181 

way  past  the  servant  or  return  home  quietly.  The  entire 
dialogue  of  the  scene  between  her  and  Margaret  passed 
through  her  mind,  and  the  very  intonation  of  their  voices. 
But  it  was  not  Margaret  who  opened  the  door  to  her. 

"  This  way,  miss,  please." 

"]STo,  I'll  wait  in  the  music-room." 

"  Mr.  Innes  won't  have  no  one  wait  there  in  his  ab- 
sence. Will  you  come  into  the  parlour  ? " 

"  ISTo,  I  think  I'll  wait  in  the  music-room.  I'm  Miss 
Innes;  Mr.  Innes  is  my  father." 

"  What,  miss,  are  you  the  great  singer  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  I  am." 

"  Do  you  know,  miss,  something  told  me  that  you  was. 
The  moment  I  saw  the  carriage,  I  said,  '  Here  she  is ;  this 
is  her  for  certain.'  Will  you  come  this  way,  miss?  I'll 
run  and  get  the  key." 

"And  who  was  it,"  Evelyn  said,  "that  told  you  I  was 
a  singer  ? " 

"  Lor'^  miss,  didn't  half  Dulwich  go  to  hear  you  sing 
at  the  opera  ?  " 

"Did  you?" 

"  No,  I  didn't  go,  miss,  but  I  heard  Mr.  Dean  and  your 
father  talking  of  you.  I've  read  about  you  in  the  papers; 
only  this  morning  there  was  a  long  piece." 

"  If  father  talks  of  me  he'll  forgive  me,"  thought  Eve- 
lyn. The  girl's  wonderment  made  her  smile,  and  she 
said — 

"  But  you've  not  told  me  your  name." 

"  My  name  is  Agnes,  miss." 

"  Have  you  been  long  with  my  father  ?  When  I  left, 
Margaret " 

"  Ah !  she's  dead,  miss.  I  came  to  your  father  the  day 
after  the  funeral." 

Evelyn  walked  up  the  room,  overcome  by  the  eternal 
absence  of  something  which  had  hitherto  been  part  of  her 
life.  For  Margaret  took  her  back  to  the  time  her  mother 
was  alive;  farther  back  still — to  the  very  beginning  of  her 
life.  She  had  always  reckoned  on  Margaret.  ...  So  Mar- 
garet was  dead.  Margaret  would  never  know  of  this  meet- 
ing. Margaret  might  have  helped  her.  Poor  Margaret! 
At  that  moment  she  caught  sight  of  her  mother's  eyes. 
They  seemed  to  watch  her;  she  seemed  to  know  all  about 


182  EVELYN  INNES. 

Owen,  and  afraid  of  the  haunting,  reproving  look,  Evelyn 
studied  the  long  oval  face  and  the  small  brown  eyes  so  un- 
like hers.  One  thing  only  she  had  inherited  from  her  mother 
— her  voice.  She  had  certainly  not  inherited  her  conduct 
from  her  mother;  her  mother  was  one  of  the  few  great  ar- 
tistes against  whom  nothing  could  be  said.  Her  mother 
was  a  good  woman.  .  .  .  What  did  she  think  of  her  daugh- 
ter? And  seeing  her  cold,  narrow  face,  she  feared  her 
mother  would  regard  her  conduct  even  more  severely  than 
her  father.  ..."  But  if  she  had  lived  I  should  have  had 
no  occasion  to  go  away  with  Owen."  She  wondered.  At 
the  bottom  of  her  heart  she  knew  that  Owen  was  as  much 
as  anything  else  a  necessity  in  her  life.  .  .  .  She  moved 
about  the  room  and  wished  the  hands  of  the  clock  could 
be  advanced  a  couple  of  hours,  for  then  the  terrible  scene 
with  her  father  would  be  over.  If  he  could  only  forgive 
her  at  once  and  not  make  her  miserable  with  reproaches, 
they  could  have  such  a  pleasant  evening. 

In  this  room  her  past  life  was  blown  about  her  like 
spray  about  a  rock.  She  remembered  the  days  when  she 
went  to  London  with  her  father  to  give  lessons;  the  miser- 
able winter  when  she  lost  her  pupils.  .  .  .  How  she  had 
waited  in  this  room  for  her  father  to  come  back  to  dinner; 
the  faintness  of  those  hungry  hours;  worse  still,  that 
yearning  for  love.  She  must  have  died  if  she  had  not  gone 
away.  If  it  had  to  happen  all  over  again  she  must  act 
as  she  had  acted.  How  well  she  remembered  the  moment 
when  she  felt  that  her  life  in  Dulwich  had  become  impossi- 
ble! She  was  coming  from  the  village  where  she  had  been 
paying  some  bills,  and  looking  up  she  had  suddenly  seen 
the  angle  of  a  house  and  a  bare  tree,  and  she  could  still 
hear  the  voice  which  had  spoken  out  of  her  very  soul. 
"Shall  I  never  get  away  from  this  place?"  it  had  cried. 
"  Shall  I  go  on  doing  these  daily  tasks  for  ever  ?  "  The 
strange,  vehement  agony  of  the  voice  had  frightened  her. 
...  At  that  moment  her  eyes  were  attracted  by  a  sort  of 
harpsichord.  "  One  of  father's  experiments,"  she  said, 
running  her  fingers  over  the  keys.  "  A  sort  of  cross  be- 
tween a  harpsichord  and  a  virginal ;  up  here  the  intonation 
is  that  of  a  virginal." 

"  I  forgot  to  ask  you,  miss  " — Evelyn  turned  from  the 
window,  startled ;  it  was  Agnes  who  had  come  back — "  if 


EVELYN  INNES.  183 

you  was  going  to  stop  for  dinner,  for  there's  very  little  in 
the  house,  only  a  bit  of  cold  beef.  I  should  be  ashamed  to 
put  it  on  the  table,  miss;  I'm  sure  you  couldn't  eat  it. 
Master  don't  think  what  he  eats;  he's  always  thinking  of 
his  music.  I  hope  you  aren't  like  that,  miss  ?  " 

"  So  he  doesn't  eat  much.  How  is  my  father  looking, 
Agnes?" 

"  Middling,  miss.  He  varies  about  a  good  bit ;  he's  gone 
rather  thin  lately." 

"  Is  he  lonely,  do  you  think  ...  in  the  evenings  ?  " 

"  No,  miss ;  I  don't  hear  him  say  anything  about  being 
lonely.  For  the  last  couple  of  years  he  never  did  more 
than  come  home  to  sleep  and  his  meals,  and  he'd  spend  the 
evenings  copying  out  the  music." 

"  And  off  again  early  in  the  morning  ?  " 

"  That's  it,  miss,  with  his  music  tied  up  in  a  brown 
paper  parcel.  Sometimes  Mr.  Dean  comes  and  helps  him 
to  write  the  music." 

"  Ah !  .  .  .  but  I'm  sorry  he  doesn't  eat  better." 

"He  eats  better  when  Mr.  Dean's  here.  They  has  a 
nice  litle  dinner  together.  Now  he's  taken  up  with  that 
'ere  instrument,  the  harpy  chord,  they's  making.  He's 
comin'  home  to-night  to  finish  it;  he  says  he  can't  get  it 
finished  nohow — that  they's  always  something  more  to  do 
to  it." 

"  I  wonder  if  we  could  get  a  nice  dinner  for  him  this 
evening  ?  " 

"  Well,  miss,  you  see  there's  no  shops  to  speak  of  about 
here.  You  know  that  as  well  as  I  do." 

"  I  wonder  what  your  cooking  is  like  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,  miss ;  p'r'aps  it  wouldn't  suit  you,  but 
I've  been  always  praised  for  my  cooking." 

"  I  could  send  for  some  things ;  my  coachman  could 
fetch  them  from  town." 

"  Then  there's  to-morrow  to  be  thought  about  if  you're 
stopping  here.  I  tell  you  we  don't  keep  much  in  the  'ouse." 

"  Is  my  father  coming  home  to  dinner  ?  " 

"  I  can't  say  for  certain,  miss,  only  that  he  said  'e'd  be 
'ome  early  to  finish  the  harpy  chord.  'E  might  have  'is 
dinner  out  and  come  'ome  directly  after,  but  I  shouldn't 
think  that  was  likely." 

"  You  can  cook  a  chicken,  Agnes  ?  " 


184  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  Lor' !  yes,  miss." 

"And  a  sole?" 

"  Yes,  miss ;  but  in  ordering,  miss,  you  must  think  of 
to-morrow.  You  won't  like  to  have  a  nice  dinner  to-night 
and  a  bit  of  hashed  mutton  to-morrow." 

"  I'll  order  sufficient.  You've  got  no  wine,  I  sup- 
pose ?  " 

"  No,  we've  no  wine,  miss,  only  draught  beer." 

"I'll  tell  my  coachman  to  go  and  fetch  the  things  at 
once." 

When  she  returned  to  the  music-room,  Agnes  asked  her 
if  she  was  going  to  stop  the  night. 

"  Because  I  should  have  to  get  your  rooms  ready, 
miss." 

"That  I  can't  tell,  Agnes.  ...  I  don't  think  so.  ... 
You  won't  tell  my  father  I'm  here  when  you  let  him  in? 
...  I  want  it  to  be  a  surprise." 

"  I  won't  say  nothing,  miss.  I'll  leave  him  to  find 
it  out." 

Evelyn  felt  that  the  girl  must  have  guessed  her  story, 
must  have  perceived  in  her  the  repentant  daughter — the 
erring  daughter  returned  home.  Everything  pointed  to 
that  fact.  Well,  it  couldn't  be  helped  if  she  had. 

"  If  my  father  will  only  forgive  me ;  if  that  first  dread- 
ful scene  were  only  over,  we  could  have  an  enchanting 
evening  together." 

She  was  too  nervous  to  seek  out  a  volume  of  Bach 
and  let  her  fingers  run  over  the  keys;  she  played  anything 
that  came  into  her  head,  sometimes  she  stopped  to  listen. 
At  last  there  came  a  knock,  and  her  heart  told  her  it  was 
his.  In  another  moment  he  would  be  in  the  room.  But 
seeing  her  he  stopped,  and,  without  a  word,  he  went  to  a 
table  and  began  untying  a  parcel  of  music. 

"  Father,  I've  come  to  see  you.  .  .  .  You  don't  answer. 
Father,  are  not  you  going  to  speak  to  me?  I've  been  long- 
ing to  see  you,  and  now " 

"  If  you  had  wanted  to  see  me,  you'd  have  come  a  month 
ago." 

"  I  was  not  in  London  a  month  ago." 

"  Well,  three  weeks  ago." 

"  I  ought  to  have  done  so,  but  I  had  no  courage.  I 
could  only  see  you  looking  at  me  as  you  are  looking  now. 


EVELYN  INNES.  185 

Forgive  me,  father.  .  .  .  I'm  your  only  daughter;  she's 
full  of  failings,  but  she  has  never  ceased  to  love  you." 

He  sat  at  the  table  fumbling  with  the  string  that  had 
tied  the  parcel  he  had  brought  in,  and  she  stood  looking  at 
him,  unable  to  speak.  She  seemed  to  have  said  all  there 
was  to  say,  and  wished  she  could  throw  herself  at  his  feet; 
but  she  could  not,  something  held  her  back.  She  prayed 
for  tears,  but  her  eyes  remained  dry;  her  mouth  was  dry, 
and  a  flame  seemed  to  burn  behind  her  eyes.  She  could 
only  think  that  this  might  be  the  last  time  she  would  see 
him.  The  silence  seemed  a  great  while.  She  repeated  her 
words,  "  I  had  not  the  courage  to  gome  before."  At  the 
sound  of  her  voice  she  remembered  that  she  must  speak  to 
him  at  once  of  his  choir,  and  so  take  their  thoughts  from 
painful  reminiscence. 

"  I  went  to  St.  Joseph's  on  Thursday,  but  you  weren't 
there.  You  gave  Vittoria's  mass  last  Sunday.  I  started  to 
go,  but  I  had  to  turn  back." 

She  had  not  gone  to  hear  her  father's  choir,  because 
she  could  not  resist  Lady  Ascott's  invitation,  and  no  more 
than  the  invitation  could  she  resist  the  lie;  she  had  striven 
against  it,  but  in  spite  of  herself  it  had  forced  itself 
through  her  lips,  and  now  her  father  seemed  to  have  some 
inkling  of  the  truth,  for  he  said — 

"  If  you  had  cared  to  hear  my  choir  you'd  have  gone. 
You  needn't  have  seen  me,  whereas  I  was  obliged " 

Evelyn  guessed  that  he  had  been  to  the  opera.  "  How 
good  of  him  to  have  gone  to  hear  me,"  she  thought.  She 
hated  herself  for  having  accepted  Lady  Ascott's  invitation, 
and  the  desire  to  ask  him  what  he  thought  of  her  voice 
seemed  to  her  an  intolerable  selfishness. 

"  What  were  you  going  to  say,  father  ? " 

"  Nothing.  .  .  .  I'm  glad  you  didn't  come." 

"  Wasn't  it  well  sung  ? "  and  she  was  seized  with  nerv- 
ousness, and  instead  of  speaking  to  him  about  his  basses 
as  she  had  intended,  she  asked  him  about  the  trebles. 

"  They  are  the  worst  part  of  the  choir.  That  contra- 
puntal music  can  only  be  sung  by  those  who  can  sing  at 
sight.  The  piano  has  destroyed  the  modern  ear.  I  dare- 
say it  has  spoilt  your  ear." 

"  My  ear  is  all  right,  I  think." 

"  I  hope  it  is  better  than  your  heart." 


186  EVELYN  INNES. 

Evelyn's  face  grew  quite  still,  as  if  it  were  frozen,  and 
seeing  the  pain  he  had  caused  her  he  was  moved  to  take  her 
in  his  arms  and  forgive  her  straight  away.  He  might  have 
done  so,  but  she  turned,  and  passing  her  hand  across  her 
eyes  she  went  to  the  harpsichord.  She  played  one  of  the 
little  Elizabethan  songs,  "  John,  come  kiss  me  now."  Then 
an  old  French  song  tempted  her  voice  by  its  very  appro- 
priateness to  the  situation — "  Que  vous  me  coutez  cher, 
mon  coaur,  pour  vos  plaisirs."  But  there  was  a  knot  in 
her  throat,  she  could  not  sing,  she  could  hardly  speak. 
She  endeavoured  to  lead  her  father  into  conversation,  hop- 
ing he  might  forget  her  conduct  until  it  was  too  late  for 
him  to  withdraw  his  resentment.  She  could  see  that  the 
instrument  she  was  playing  on  he  had  made  himself.  In 
some  special  intention  it  was  filled  with  levers  and  stops, 
the  use  of  which  was  not  quite  apparent  to  her;  and  she 
could  see  by  the  expression  of  his  face  that  he  was  annoyed 
by  her  want  of  knowledge  of  the  technicalities  of  the  in- 
strument. 

So  she  purposely  exaggerated  her  ignorance. 

He  fell  into  the  trap  and  going  to  her  he  said,  "  You 
are  not  making  use  of  the  levers." 

"  Oh,  am  I  not  ? "  she  said  innocently.  "  What  is  this 
instrument — a  virginal  or  a  harpsichord  2  " 

"  It  is  a  harpsichord,  but  the  intonation  is  that  of  a 
virginal.  I  made  it  this  winter.  The  volume  of  sound 
from  the  old  harpsichord  is  not  sufficient  in  a  large  theatre, 
that  is  why  the  harpsichord  music  in  '  Don  Juan  '  has  to  be 
played  on  the  fiddles." 

He  stopped  speaking  and  she  pressed  him  in  vain  to  ex- 
plain the  instrument.  She  went  on  playing. 

"  The  levers,"  he  said  at  last,  "  are  above  your  knees. 
Raise  your  knees." 

She  pretended  not  to  understand. 

"  Let  me  show  you."  He  seated  himself  at  the  instru- 
ment. "  You  see  the  volume  of  sound  I  obtain,  and  all 
the  while  I  do  not  alter  the  treble." 

"  Yes,  yes,  and  the  sonority  of  the  instrument  is  double 
that  of  the  old  harpsichord.  It  would  be  heard  all  over 
Covent  Garden." 

She  could  sfo  tli;it  tho  remark  pleased  him.  "I'll  sing 
'  Zerline '  if  you'll  play  it." 


EVELYN  INNES.  187 

"  You  couldn't  sing  '  Zerline,'  it  isn't  in  your  voice." 

"  You  don't  know  what  my  voice  is  like.' 

"  Evelyn,  I  wonder  how  you  can  expect  me  to  forgive 
you ;  I  wonder  how  I  can  speak  to  you.  Have  you  forgotten 
how  you  went  away  leaving  me  to  bear  the  shame,  the  dis- 
grace ? " 

"  I  have  come  to  beg  forgiveness,  not  to  excuse  myself. 
But  I  wrote  to  you  from  Paris  that  I  was  going  to  live  with 
Lady  Duckle,  and  that  you  were  to  say  that  I  had  gone 
abroad  to  study  singing." 

"  I'm  astonished,  Evelyn,  that  you  can  speak  so  lightly." 

"  I  do  not  think  lightly  of  my  conduct,  if  you  knew  the 
miserable  days  it  has  cost  me.  Reproach  me  as  you  will 
about  my  neglect  toward  you,  but  as  far  as  the  world  is 
concerned  there  has  been  no  disgrace." 

"You  would  have  gone  all  the  same;  you  only  thought 
of  yourself.  Brought  up  as  you  have  been,  a  Catholic 

"  My  sins,  father,  lie  between  God  and  myself.  What  I 
come  for  is  to  beg  forgiveness  for  the  wrong  I  did  you." 

He  did  not  answer,  but  he  seemed  to  acquiesce,  and  it 
was  a  relief  to  her  to  feel  that  it  was  not  the  moral  question 
that  divided  them;  convention  had  forced  him  to  lay  some 
stress  upon  it,  but  clearly  what  rankled  in  his  heart,  and 
prevented  him  from  taking  her  in  his  arms,  was  a  jealous, 
purely  human  feud.  This  she  felt  she  could  throw  herself 
against  and  overpower. 

"  Father,  you  must  forgive  me,  we  are  all  in  all  to  each 
other ;  nothing  can  change  that.  Ever  since  mother's  death 
— you  remember  when  the  nurse  told  us  all  was  over — ever 
since  I've  felt  that  we  were  in  some  strange  way  dependent 
on  each  other.  Our  love  for  each  other  is  the  one  unalter- 
able thing.  My  music  you  taught  me;  the  first  songs  I 
sang  were  at  your  concerts,  and  now  that  we  have  both 
succeeded — you  with  Palestrina,  and  I  with  Wagner — we 
must  needs  be  aliens.  Father,  can't  you  see  that  that  can 
never  be?  if  you  don't  you  do  not  love  me  as  I  do  you. 
You're  still  thinking  that  I  left  you.  Of  course,  it  was 
very  wrong,  but  has  that  changed  anything?  Father,  tell 
me,  tell  me,  unless  you  want  to  kill  me,  that  you  do  not 
believe  that  I  love  you  less." 

The  wonder  of  the  scene  she  was  acting — she  never  ad- 
mitted she  acted;  she  lived  through  scenes,  whether  ficti- 


188  EVELYX  IXXES. 

tious  or  real — quickened  in  her;  it  was  the  long-expected 
scene,  the  scene  in  the  third  act  of  the  "  Valkyrie  "  which 
she  had  always  played  while  divining  the  true  scene  which 
she  would  be  called  upon  to  play  one  day.  It  seemed  to  her 
that  she  stood  on  the  verge  of  all  her  future — the  mystery  of 
the  abyss  gathered  behind  her  eyes;  she  threw  herself  at 
her  father's  feet,  and  the  celebrated  phrase,  so  plaintive,  so 
full  of  intercession,  broke  from  her  lips,  "  Was  the  rebel 
act  so  full  of  shame  that  her  rebellion  is  so  shamefully 
scourged?  Was  my  offence  so  deep  in  disgrace  that  thou 
dost  plan  so  deep  a  disgrace  for  me?  Was  this  my  crime 
so  dark  with  dishonour  that  it  henceforth  robs  me  of  all 
honour?  Oh,  tell  me,  father;  look  in  mine  eyes."  She 
heard  the  swelling  harmony,  every  chord,  the  note  that 
gave  her  the  note  she  was  to  sing.  She  was  carried  down 
like  a  drowning  one  into  a  dim  world  of  sub-conscious 
being;  and  in  this  half  life  all  that  was  most  true  in  her 
seemed  to  rise  like  a  star  and  shine  forth,  while  all  that  was 
circumstantial  and  ephemeral  seemed  to  fall  away.  She 
was  conscious  of  the  purification  of  self;  she  seemed  to  see 
herself  white  and  bowed  and  penitent.  She  experienced  a 

great  happiness  in  becoming  humble  and  simple  again 

But  she  did  not  know  if  the  transformation  which  was  tak- 
ing place  in  her  was  an  abiding  or  a  passing  thing.  She 
knew  she  was  expressing  all  that  was  most  deep  in  her 
nature,  and  yet  she  had  acted  all  that  she  now  believed 
to  be  reality  on  the  stage  many  times.  It  seemed  as  true 
then  as  it  did  now — more  true;  for  she  was  less  self-con- 
scious in  the  fictitious  than  in  the  real  scene. 

She  knelt  at  her  father's  or  at  Wotan's  feet — she  could 
not  distinguish;  all  limitations  had  been  razed.  She  was 
the  daughter  at  the  father's  feet.  She  knelt  like  the  Mag- 
dalen. The  position  had  always  been  natural  to  her,  and 
habit  had  made  it  inveterate;  there  she  bemoaned  the  dif- 
ficulties of  life,  the  passion  which  had  cast  her  down  mid 
which  seemed  to  forbid  her  an  ideal.  She  caught  her  fa- 
ther's hand  and  pressed  it  against  her  cheek.  She  knew 
she  was  doing  these  things,  yet  she  could  not  do  otherwise ; 
tears  fell  upon  his  hand,  and  the  grief  she  expressed  was  so 
intense  that  he  could  not  restrain  his  tears.  But  if  she 
raised  her  face  and  saw  his  tears,  his  position  as  a  stern 
father  was  compromised!  She  could  only  think  of  her 


EVELYN  INNES.  189 

own  grief;  the  grief  and  regret  of  many  years  absorbed 
her;  she  was  so  lost  in  it  that  she  expected  him  to  answer 
her  in  Wotan's  own  music;  she  even  smiled  in  her  grief 
at  her  expectation,  and  continued  the  music  of  her  inter- 
cession. And  it  was  not  until  he  asked  her  why  she  was 
singing  Wagner  that  she  raised  her  face.  That  he  should 
not  know,  jarred  and  spoilt  the  harmony  of  the  scene  as 
she  had  conceived  it,  and  it  was  not  till  he  repeated  his 
question  that  she  told  him. 

"  Because  I've  never  sung  it  without  thinking  of  you, 
father.  That  is  why  I  sang  it  so  well.  I  knew  it  all  be- 
fore. It  tore  at  my  heart  strings.  I  knew  that  one  day 
it  would  come  to  this." 

"  So  every  time  before  was  but  a  rehearsal." 

She  rose  to  her  feet. 

"  Why  are  you  so  cruel  ?  It  is  you  who  are  acting,  not 
I.  I  mean  what  I  say — you  don't.  Why  make  me  miser- 
able? You  know  that  you  must  forgive  pie.  You  can't 
put  me  out  of  doors,  so  what  is  the  use  in  arguing  about 
my  faults  ?  I  am  like  that  .  .  .  you  must  take  me  as  I  am, 
and  perhaps  you  would  not  have  cared  for  me  half  as  much 
if  I  had  been  different." 

"  Evelyn,  how  can  you  speak  like  that  ?  You  shock  me 
very  much." 

She  regretted  her  indiscretion,  and  feared  she  had  raised 
the  moral  question;  but  the  taunt  that  it  was  he  and  not 
she  that  was  acting  had  sunk  into  his  heart,  and  the  truth 
of  it  overcame  him.  It  was  he  who  had  been  acting.  He 
had  pretended  an  anger  which  he  did  not  feel,  and  it  was 
quite  true  that,  whatever  she  did,  he  could  not  really  feel 
anger  against  her.  She  was  shrined  in  his  heart,  the  dream 
of  his  whole  life.  He  could  feel  anger  against  himself,  but 
not  against  her.  She  was  right.  He  must  forgive  her,  for 
how  could  he  live  without  her?  Into  what  dissimulation 
he  had  been  foolishly  ensnared !  In  these  convictions  which 
broke  like  rockets  in  his  heart  and  brain,  spreading  a 
strange  illumination  in  much  darkness,  he  saw  her  beauty 
and  sex  idealised,  and  in  the  vision  were  the  eyes  and  pal- 
lor of  the  dead  wife,  and  all  the  yearning  and  aspiration  of 
his  own  life  seemed  reflected  back  in  this  fair,  oval  face, 
lit  with  luminous,  eager  eyes,  and  in  the  tangle  of  gold 
hair  fallen  about  her  ears,  and  thrown  back  hastily  with 


190  EVELYN  INNES. 

long  fingers;  and  the  wonder  of  her  sex  in  the  world 
seemed  to  shed  a  light  on  distant  horizons,  and  he  under- 
stood the  strangeness  of  the  common  event  of  father  and 
daughter  standing  face  to  face,  divided,  or  seemingly  di- 
vided, by  the  mystery  of  the  passion  of  which  all  things 
are  made.  His  own  sins  were  remembered.  They  fell  like 
soft  fire  breaking  in  a  dark  sky,  and  his  last  sensation  in 
the  whirl  of  complex,  diffused  and  passing  sensations  was 
the  thrill  of  terror  at  the  little  while  remaining  to  him 
wherein  he  might  love  her.  A  few  years  at  most!  His 
eyes  told  her  what  was  happening  in  his  heart,  and  with 
that  beautiful  movement  of  rapture  so  natural  to  her,  she 
threw  herself  into  his  arms. 

"  I  knew,  father,  dear,  that  you'd  forgive  me  in  the 
end.  It  was  impossible  to  think  of  two  like  us  living  and 
dying  in  alienation.  I  should  have  killed  myself,  and  you, 
dear,  you  would  have  died  of  grief.  But  I  dreaded  this 
first  meeting.  I  had  thought  of  it  too  much,  and,  as  I 
told  you,  I  had  acted  it  so  often." 

"  Have  I  been  so  severe  with  you,  Evelyn,  that  you 
should  dread  me  ?  " 

"  No,  darling,  but,  of  course,  I've  behaved — there's  no 
use  talking  about  it  any  more.  But  you  could  never  have 
been  really  in  doubt  that  a  lover  could  ever  change  my 
love  for  you.  Owen — I  mustn't  speak  about  him,  only  I 
wish  you  to  understand  that  I've  never  ceased  to  think  of 
you.  I've  never  been  really  happy,  and  I'm  sure  you've 
been  miserable  about  me  often  enough;  but  now  we  may 
be  happy.  '  Winter  storms  wane  in  the  winsome  May.' 
You  know  the  Lied  in  the  first  act  of  the  '  Valkyrie '  ? 
And  now  that  we're  friends,  I  suppose  you'll  come  and  hear 
me.  Tell  me  about  your  choir."  She  paused  a  moment, 
and  then  said,  "  My  first  thought  was  for  you  on  landing  in 
England.  There  was  a  train  waiting  at  Victoria,  but  we'd 
had  a  bad  crossing,  and  I  felt  so  ill  that  I  couldn't  go. 
Next  day  I  was  nervous.  I  had  not  the  courage,  and  he 
proposed  that  I  should  wait  till  I  had  sung  Margaret. 
So  much  depended  on  the  success  of  my  first  appearance. 
He  was  afraid  that  if  I  had  had  a  scene  with  you  I  might 
break  down." 

"  Wotan,  you  say,  forgives  Brunnhilde,  but  doesn't  he 
put  her  to  sleep  on  a  fire-surrounded  rock?" 


EVELYN  INNES.  191 

"He  puts  her  to  sleep  on  the  rock,  but  it  is  she  who 
asks  for  flames  to  protect  her  from  the  unworthy.  Wotan 
grunts  her  request,  and  Brunnhilde  throws  herself  enrap- 
tured into  his  arms.  '  Let  the  coward  shun  Bruniihilde's 
rock — for  but  one  shall  win  the  bride  who  is  freer  than  I, 
the  god ! '  " 

"  Oh,  that's  it,  is  it  ?  Then  with  what  flames  shall  I 
surround  you  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,  I've  often  wondered ;  the  flame  of  a 
promise — a  promise  never  to  leave  you  again,  father.  I 
can  promise  no  more." 

"  I  want  no  other  promise." 

The  eyes  of  the  portrait  were  fixed  on  them,  and  they 
wondered  what  would  be  the  words  of  the  dead  woman  if 
she  could  speak. 

Agnes  announced  that  the  coachman  had  returned. 

"  Father,  I've  lots  of  things  to  see  to.  I'm  g«ing  to 
stop  to  dinner  if  you'll  let  me." 

"  I'm  afraid,  Evelyn — Agnes ' 

"  You  need  not  trouble  about  the  dinner — Agnes  and 
I  will  see  to  that.  We  have  made  all  necessary  arrange- 
ments." 

"  Is  that  your  carriage  ?  .  .  .  You've  got  a  fine  pair  of 
horses.  Well,  one  can't  be  Evelyn  Innes  for  nothing.  But 
if  you're  stopping  to  dinner,  you'd  better  stop  the  night. 
I'm  giving  the  '  Missa  Brevis '  to-morrow.  I'm  giving  it 
in  honour  of  Monsignor  Mostyn.  It  was  he  who  helped 
me  to  overcome  Father  Gordon." 

"  You  shall  tell  me  all  about  Monsignor  after  dinner." 

He  walked  about  the  room,  unwittingly  singing  the 
Lied,  "  Winter  storms  wane  in  the  winsome  May,"  and 
he  stopped  before  the  harpischord,  thinking  he  saw  her 
still  there.  And  his  thoughts  sailed  on,  vagrant  as  clouds 
in  a  spring  breeze.  She  had  come  back,  his  most  wonderful 
daughter  had  come  back! 

He  turned  from  his  wife's  portrait,  fearing  the  thought 
that  her  joy  in  their  daughter's  return  might  be  sparer  than 
his.  But  unpleasant  thoughts  fell  from  him,  and  happiness 
sang  in  his  brain  like  spring-awakened  water-courses,  and 
the  scent  in  his  nostrils  was  of  young  leaves  and  flowers, 
and  his  very  flesh  was  happy  as  the  warm,  loosening  earth 
in  spring.  "  '  Winter  storms,'  "  he  sang,  "  '  wane  in  the 
13 


192  EVELYN  INNES. 

winsome  May;  with  tender  radiance  sparkles  the  spring.' 
I  must  hear  her  sing  that;  I  must  hear  her  intercede  at 
Wotan's  feet !  "  His  eyes  filled  with  happy  tears,  and  he 
put  questions  aside.  She  was  coming  to-morrow  to  hear 
his  choir.  And  what  would  she  think  of  it?  A  shadow 
passed  across  his  face.  If  he  had  known  she  was  coming, 
he'd  have  taken  more  trouble  with  those  altos;  he'd  have 
kept  them  another  hour.  .  .  .  Then,  taken  with  a  sudden 
craving  to  see  her,  he  went  to  the  door  and  called  to  her. 

"  Evelyn." 

"  Yes,  father." 

"  You  are  stopping  to-night  ?  " 

"  Yes,  but  I  can't  stop  to  speak  with  you  now — I'm  busy 
with  Agnes." 

She  was  deep  in  discussion  with  Agnes  regarding  the 
sole.  Agnes  thought  she  knew  how  to  prepare  it  with 
bread  crumbs,  but  both  were  equally  uncertain  how  the 
melted  butter  was  to  be  made.  There  was  no  cookery- 
book  in  the  house,  and  it  seemed  as  if  the  fish  would  have 
to  be  eaten  with  plain  butter  until  it  occurred  to  Agnes 
that  she  might  borrow  a  cookery-book  next  door.  It  seemed 
to  Evelyn  that  she  had  never  seen  a  finer  sole,  so  fat  and 
firm;  it  really  would  be  a  pity  if  they  did  not  succeed  in 
making  the  melted  butter.  When  Agnes  came  back  with 
the  book,  Evelyn  read  out  the  directions,  and  was  surprised 
how  hard  it  was  to  understand.  In  the  end  it  was  Agnes 
who  explained  it  to  her.  The  chicken  presented  some  dif- 
ficulties. It  was  of  an  odd  size,  and  Agnes  was  not  sure 
whether  it  would  take  half-an-hour  or  three-quarters  to 
cook.  Evelyn  studied  the  white  bird,  felt  the  cold,  clammy 
flesh,  and  inclined  to  forty  minutes.  Agnes  thought  that 
would  be  enough  if  she  could  get  her  oven  hot  enough.  She 
began  by  raking  out  the  flues,  and  Evelyn  had  to  stand 
back  to  avoid  the  soot.  She  stood,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the 
fire,  interested  in  the  draught  and  the  dissolution  of  every 
piece  of  coal  in  the  flame.  It  seemed  to  Evelyn  that  the 
fire  was  drawing  beautifully,  and  she  appealed  to  Agnes, 
who  only  seemed  fairly  satisfied.  It  was  doing  pretty  well, 
but  she  had  never  liked  that  oven;  one  was  never  sure  of 
it.  Margaret  used  to  put  a  piece  of  paper  over  the  chicken 
to  prevent  it  burning,  but  Agnes  said  there  was  no  danger 
of  it  burning;  the  oven  never  could  get  hot  enough  for 


EVELYN  INNES.  193 

that.  But  the  oven,  as  Agnes  had  said,  was  a  tricky  one, 
and  when  she  took  the  chicken  out  to  baste  it,  it  seemed 
a  little  scorched.  So  Evelyn  insisted  on  a  piece  of  paper. 
Agnes  said  that  it  would  delay  the  cooking  of  the  chicken, 
and  attributed  the  scorching  to  the  quantity  of  coal  which 
Miss  Innes  would  keep  adding.  If  she  put  any  more  on 
she  would  not  be  answerable  that  the  chimney  would  not 
catch  fire.  Every  seven  or  eight  minutes  the  chicken  was 
taken  out  to  be  basted.  The  bluey-whitey  look  of  the  flesh 
which  Evelyn  had  disliked  had  disappeared;  the  chicken 
was  acquiring  a  rich  brown  colour  which  she  much  ad- 
mired, and  if  it  had  not  been  for  Agnes,  who  told  her  the 
dinner  would  be  delayed  till  eight  o'clock,  she  would  have 
had  the  chicken  out  every  five  minutes,  so  much  did  she 
enjoy  pouring  the  rich,  bubbling  juice  over  the  plump 
back. 

"  Father !  Father,  dinner  is  ready !  I've  got  a  sole  and 
a  chicken.  The  sole  is  a  beauty ;  Agnes  says  she  never  saw 
a  fresher  one." 

"  And  where  did  all  these  things  come  from  ?  " 

"  I  sent  my  coachman  for  them.  Now  sit  down  and  let 
me  help  you.  I  cooked  the  dinner  myself."  Feeling  that 
Agnes's  eye  was  upon  her,  she  added,  "  Agnes  and  I — I 
helped  Agnes.  We  made  the  melted  butter  from  the  re- 
ceipt in  the  cookery-book  next  door.  I  do  hope  it  is  a  suc- 
cess." r 

"  I  see  you've  got  champagne,  too." 

"  But  I  don't  know  how  you're  to  get  the  bottle  open, 
miss;  we've  no  champagne  nippers." 

After  some  conjecturing  the  wires  were  twisted  off  with 
a  kitchen  fork.  Evelyn  kept  her  eyes  on  her  father's  plate, 
and  begged  to  be  allowed  to  help  him  again,  and  she  de- 
lighted in  filling  up  his  glass  with  wine;  and  though  she 
longed  to  ask  him  if  he  had  been  to  hear  her  sing,  she  did 
not  allude  to  herself,  but  induced  him  to  talk  of  his  vic- 
tories over  Father  Gordon.  This  story  of  clerical  jealousy 
and  ignorance  was  intensely  interesting  to  the  old  man, 
and  she  humoured  him  to  the  top  of  his  bent. 

"  But  it  would  all  have  come  to  nothing  if  it  had  not 
been  for  Monsignor  Mostyn." 

She  fetched  him  his  pipe  and  tobacco.  "  And  who  is 
Monsignor  Mostyn  ? "  she  asked,  dreading  a  long  tale  in 


194  EVELYN  INNES. 

which  she  could  feel  no  interest  at  all.  She  watched  him 
filling  his  pipe,  working  the  tobacco  down  with  his  little 
finger  nail.  She  thought  she  could  see  he  was  thinking 
of  something  different,  and  to  her  great  joy  he  said — 

"  Well,  your  Margaret  is  very  good ;  better  than  I  ex- 
pected— I  am  speaking  of  the  singing;  of  course,  as  acting 
it  was  superb." 

"Oh,  father!  do  tell  me?  So  you  went  after  all?  I 
sent  you  a  box  and  a  stall,  but  you  were  in  neither.  In 
what  part  of  the  theatre  were  you  ? " 

"  In  the  upper  boxes ;  I  did  not  want  to  dress."  She 
leaned  across  the  table  with  brightening  eyes.  "  For  a 
dramatic  soprano  you  sing  that  light  music  with  extraor- 
dinary ease  and  fluency." 

"  Did  I  sing  it  as  well  as  mother  ?  " 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  it  was  quite  different.  Your  mother's 
art  was  in  her  phrasing  and  in  the  ideal  appearance  she 
presented." 

"  And  didn't  I  present  an  ideal  appearance  ? " 

"It's  like  this,  Evelyn.  The  Margaret  of  Gounod  and 
his  librettist  is  not  a  real  person,  but  a  sort  of  keepsake 
beauty  who  sings  keepsake  music.  I  assume  that  you  don't 
think  much  of  the  music;  brought  up  as  you-  have  been  on 
the  Old  Masters,  you  couldn't.  Well,  the  question  is 
whether  parts  designed  in  such  an  intention  should  be 
played  in  the  like  intention,  or  if  they  should  be  made  liv- 
ing creations  of  flesh  and  blood,  worked  up  by  the  power  of 
the  actress  into  something  as  near  to  the  Wagner  ideal  as 
possible.  I  admire  your  Margaret;  it  was  a  wonderful  per- 
formance, but " 

"But  what,  father?" 

"  It  made  me  wish  to  see  you  in  Elizabeth  and  Brunn- 
hilde.  I  was  very  sorry  I  couldn't  get  to  London  last 
night." 

"  You'd  like  my  Elizabeth  better.  Margaret  is  the  only 
part  of  the  old  lot  that  I  now  sing.  I  daresay  you're 
right.  I'll  limit  myself  for  the  future  to  the  Wagner 
repertoire." 

"  I  think  you'd  do  well.  Your  genius  is  essentially  in 
dramatic  expression.  '  Carmen,'  for  instance,  is  better  as 
Ctnlli  Marie  used  to  play  it  than  as  you  would  play  it. 
'  Carmen '  is  a  conventional  type — all  art  is  convention  of 


EVELYN  INNES.  195 

one  kind  or  another,  and  each  demands  its  own  interpreta- 
tion. But  I  hope  you  don't  sing  that  horrid  music." 

"You  don't  like  'Carmen'?" 

Mr.  Innes  shrugged  his  shoulders  contemptuously. 

"  '  Faust '  is  better  than  that.  Gounod  follows — at  a 
distance,  of  course — but  he  follows  the  tradition  of  Haydn 
and  Mozart.  '  Carmen '  is  merely  Gounod  and  Wagner. 
I  hope  you've  not  forgotten  my  teaching;  as  I've  always 
said,  music  ended  with  Beethoven  and  began  again  with 
Wagner." 

"  Did  you  see  Ulick  Dean's  article  ?  " 

"  Yes,  he  wrote  to  me  last  night  about  your  Elizabeth. 
He  says  there  never  was  anything  heard  like  it  on  the 
stage." 

"  Did  he  say  that  ?  Show  me  the  letter.  What  else  did 
he  say  ? " 

"  It  was  only  a  note.  I  destroyed  it.  He  just  said  what 
I  told  you.  But  he's  a  bit  mad  about  that  opera.  He's 
been  talking  to  me  about  it  all  the  winter,  saying  that  the 
character  had  never  been  acted;  apparently  it  has  been 
now.  Though  for  my  part  I  think  Brunnhilde  or  Isolde 
would  suit  you  better." 

The  mention  of  Isolde  caused  them  to  avoid  looking  at 
each  other,  and  Evelyn  asked  her  father  to  tell  her  about 
Ulick — how  they  became  acquainted  and  how  much  they 
saw  of  each  other.  But  to  tell  her  when  he  made  Ulick's 
acquaintance  would  be  to  allude  to  the  time  when  Evelyn 
left  home.  So  his  account  of  their  friendship  was  cursory 
and  perfunctory,  and  he  asked  Evelyn  suddenly  if  Ulick 
had  shown  her  his  opera. 

"Grania?" 

"  No,  not  '  Grania.'  He  has  not  finished  '  Grania,'  but 
'  Connla  and  the  Fairy  Maiden.'  Written,"  he  added,  "  en- 
tirely on  the  old  lines.  Come  into  the  music-room  and  you 
shall  see." 

He  took  up  the  lamp;  Evelyn  called  Agnes  to  get  an- 
other. The  lamps  were  placed  upon  the  harpsichord;  she 
lighted  some  candles,  and,  just  as  in  old  times,  they  lost 
themselves  in  dreams  and  visions.  This  time  it  was  in  a 
faint  Celtic  haze ;  a  vision  of  silver  mist  and  distant  moun- 
tain and  mere.  It  was  on  the  heights  of  Uisnech  that 
Connla  heard  the  fairy  calling  him  to  the  Plain  of  Pleas- 


196  EVELYN  IXNES. 

ure,  Moy  Mell,  where  Boadag  is  king.  And  King  Cond, 
seeing  his  son  about  to  be  taken  from  him,  summoned 
Goran  the  priest  and  bade  him  chant  his  spells  toward  the 
spot  whence  the  fairy's  voice  was  heard.  The  fairy  could 
not  resist  the  spell  of  the  priest,  but  she  threw  Connla  an 
apple  and  for  a  whole  month  he  ate  nothing  but  that.  But 
as  he  ate,  it  grew  again,  and  always  kept  whole.  And  all 
the  while  there  grew  within  him  a  mighty  yearning  and 
longing  after  the  maiden  he  had  seen.  And  when  the  last 
day  of  the  month  of  waiting  came,  Connla  stood  by  the 
side  of  the  king,  his  father,  on  the  Plain  of  Aromin,  and 
again  he  saw  the  maiden  come  towards  him,  and  again  she 
spoke  to  him — 

"  'Tis  no  lofty  seat  on  which  Connla  sits  among  short- 
lived mortals  awaiting  fearful  death,  but  now  the  folk  of 
life,  the  ever-living  living  ones,  beg  and  bid  thee  come  to 
Moy  Mell,  the  Plain  of  Pleasure,  for  they  have  learnt  to 
know  thee." 

When  Cond  the  king  observed  that  since  the  maiden 
came  Connla  his  son  spake  to  none  that  spake  to  him,  then 
Cond  of  the  hundred  fights  said  to  him — 

"  Is  it  to  thy  mind  what  the  woman  says,  my  son  ?  " 

"  'Tis  hard  on  me ;  I  love  my  folk  above  all  things,  but 
a  great  longing  seizes  me  for  the  maiden." 

"  The  waves  of  the  ocean  are  not  so  strong  as  the  waves 
of  thy  longing;  come  with  me  in  my  currah,  the  straight 
gliding,  the  crystal  boat,  and  we  shall  soon  reach  the  Plain 
of  Pleasure,  where  Boadag  is  king." 

King  Cond  and  all  his  court  saw  Connla  spring  into 
the  boat,  and  he  and  the  fairy  maiden  glided  over  the 
bright  sea,  towards  the  setting  sun,  away  and  away,  and 
they  were  seen  no  more,  nor  did  anyone  know  where  they 
went  to. 

"  My  dear  father,  manuscript,  and  at  sight,  words  and 
music ! " 

"  Come— begin." 

"  Give  me  the  chord." 

He  looked  at  her  in  astonishment. 

"  Won't  you  give  me  the  keynote  ? " 

"  In  the  key  of  E  flat,"  he  answered  sternly. 

She  began.     "  Ts  that  right?" 

"  Yes,  that's  right.    You  see  that  you  can  still  sing  at 


EVELYN  INNES.  197 

sight.  I  don't  suppose  you  find  many  prima  donnas  who 
can." 

With  her  arm  on  his  shoulder  they  sat  together,  play- 
ing and  singing  the  music  with  which  Ulick  had  interpreted 
the  tale  of  "  Connla  and  the  Fairy  Maiden." 

"  You  see,"  he  said,  "  he  has  invented  a  new  system  of 
orchestration;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  worked  it  out  to- 
gether, but  that's  neither  here  nor  there.  In  some  respects 
it  is  not  unlike  Wagner;  the  vocal  music  is  mostly  recita- 
tive, but  now  and  then  there  is  nearly  an  air,  and  yet  it 
isn't  new,  for  it  is  how  it  would  have  been  written  about 
1500.  You  see,"  he  said,  turning  over  the  pages  of  the 
full  score,  "  each  character  is  allotted  a  different  set  of 
instruments  as  accompaniment;  in  this  way  you  get  aston- 
ishing colour  contrasts.  For  instance,  the  priest  is  ac- 
companied by  a  chest  of  six  viols ;  i.  e.,  two  trebles,  two 
tenors,  two  basses.  King  Cond  is  accompanied  by  a  set  of 
six  cromornes,  like  the  viols  of  various  sizes.  The  Fairy 
Maiden  has  a  set  of  six  flutes  or  recorders,  the  smallest  of 
which  is  eight  inches  long,  the  biggest  quite  six  feet.  Conn- 
la  is  accompanied  by  a  group  of  oboes;  and  another  char- 
acter is  allotted  three  lutes  with  an  arch  lute,  another  a 
pair  of  virginals,  another  a  regal,  another  a  set  of  six  sack- 
buts  and  trumpets.  See  how  all  the  instruments  are  used  in 
the  overture  and  in  the  dances,  of  which  there  are  plenty, 
Pavans,  Galliards,  Allemaines.  But  look  here,  this  is  most 
important ;  even  in  the  instrumental  pieces  the  instruments 
are  not  to  be  mixed,  as  in  modern  orchestra,  but  used  in 
groups,  always  distinct,  like  patches  of  colour  in  impres- 
sionist pictures." 

"  I  like  this,"  and  she  hummed  through  the  fairy's  lur- 
ing of  Connla  to  embark  with  her.  "  But  I  could  not  give 
an  opinion  of  the  orchestration  without  hearing  it,  it  is 
all  so  new." 

"  We  haven't  succeeded  yet  in  getting  together  suffi- 
cient old  instruments  to  provide  an  orchestra." 

"  But,  father,  do  you  think  such  orchestration  realisable 
in  modern  music  ?  I  see  very  little  Wagner  in  it ;  it  'is 
more  like  Caccini  or  Monteverde.  There  can  be  very  little 
real  life  in  a  parody." 

"  No,  but  it  isn't  parody,  that's  just  what  it  isn't,  for  it 
is  natural  to  him  to  write  in  this  style.  What  he  writes 


198  EVELYN  INNES. 

in  the  modern  style  is  as  common  as  anyone  else.  This  is 
his  natural  language."  In  support  of  the  validity  of  his 
argument  that  a  return  to  the  original  sources  of  an  art 
is  possible  without  loss  of  originality,  he  instanced  the  Pre- 
Raphaelite  Brotherhood.  The  most  beautiful  pictures,  and 
the  most  original  pictures  Millais  had  ever  painted  were 
those  that  he  painted  while  he  was  attempting  to  revive 
the  methods  of  Van  Eyck,  and  the  language  of  Shakespeare 
was  much  more  archaic  than  that  of  any  of  his  contem- 
poraries. "  But  explanations  are  useless.  I  tried  to  ex- 
plain to  Father  Gordon  that  Palestrina  was  one  of  the 
greatest  of  musicians,  but  he  never  understood.  Monsignor 
Mostyn  and  I  understood  each  other  at  once.  I  said  Pales- 
trina, he  said  Vittoria — I  don't  know  which  suggested  the 
immense  advantage  that  a  revival  of  the  true  music  of  the 
Catholic  would  be  in  making  converts  to  Rome.  You  don't 
like  Ulick's  music;  there's  nothing  more  to  be  said." 

"  But  I  do  like  it,  father.  How  impatient  you  are !  And 
because  I  don't  understand  an  entire  aestheticism  in  five 
minutes,  which  you  and  Ulick  Dean  have  been  cooking  for 
the  last  three  years,  I  am  a  fool,  quite  as  stupid  as  Father 
Gordon." 

Mr.  Innes  laughed,  and  when  he  put  his  arm  round  her 
and  kissed  her  she  was  happy  again.  The  hours  went 
lightly  by  as  if  enchanted,  and  it  was  midnight  when  he 
closed  the  harpsichord  and  they  went  upstairs.  Neither 
spoke;  they  were  thinking  of  the  old  times  which  appar- 
ently had  come  back  to  them.  On  the  landing  she  said — 

"  We've  had  a  nice  evening  after  all.  Good-night,  fa- 
ther. I  know  my  room." 

"  Good -night,"  he  said.  "  You'll  find  all  your  things ; 
nothing  has  been  changed." 

Agnes  had  laid  one  of  her  old  nightgowns  on  the  bed, 
and  there  was  her  prie-dieu,  and  on  the  chest  of  drawers 
the  score  of  Tristan  which  Owen  had  given  her  six  years 
ago.  She  had  come  back  to  sing  it.  How  extraordinary 
it  all  was!  She  seemed  to  have  drifted  like  a  piece  of  sea- 
weed; she  lived  in  the  present  though  it  sank  beneath  her 
like  a  wave.  The  past  she  saw  dimly,  the  futtire  not  at 
all ;  and  sitting  by  her  window  she  was  moved  by  vague 
impulses  towards  infinity.  She  grew  aware  of  her  own  lit- 
tleness and  the  vastness  overhead — that  great  unending 


EVELYN  INNES.  199 

enigma  represented  to  her  understanding  by  a  tint  of  blue 
washed  over  by  a  milky  tint.  Owen  had  told  her  that 
there  were  twenty  million  suns  in  the  milky  way,  and  that 
around  every  one  numerous  planets  revolved.  This  earth 
was  but  a  small  planet,  and  its  sun  a  third-rate  sun.  On 
this  speck  of  earth  a  being  had  awakened  to  a  conscious- 
ness of  the  glittering  riddle  above  his  head,  but  he  would 
die  in  the  same  ignorance  of  its  meaning  as  a  rabbit.  The 
secret  of  the  celestial  plan  she  could  never  know.  One 
day  she  would  slip  out  of  consciousness  of  it;  life  would 
never  beckon  her  again;  but  the  vast  plan  which  she  now 
perceived  would  continue  to  revolve,  progressing  towards 
an  end  which  no  man,  though  the  world  were  to  continue 
for  a  hundred  million  years,  would  ever  know. 

Her  brain  seemed  to  melt  in  the  moonlight,  and  from 
the  enigma  of  the  skies  her  thoughts  turned  to  the  enigma 
of  her  own  individuality.  She  was  aware  that  she  lived. 
She  was  aware  that  some  things  were  right,  that  some 
things  were  wrong.  She  was  aware  of  the  strange  fortune 
that  had  lured  her,  that  had  chosen  her  out  of  millions. 
What  did  it  mean  ?  It  must  mean  something,  just  as  those 
stars  must  mean  something — but  what? 

Opposite  to  her  window  there  was  an  open  space;  it 
was  full  of  mist  and  moonlight;  the  lights  of  a  distant 
street  looked  across  it.  She  too  had  said,  "  'Tis  hard  upon 
me,  I  love  my  folk  above  all  things,  but  a  great  longing 
seizes  me."  That  story  is  the  story  of  human  life.  What 
is  human  life  but  a  longing  for  something  beyond  us,  for 
something  we  shall  not  attain?  Again  she  wondered  what 
her  end  must  be.  She  must  end  somehow,  and  was  it  not 
strange  that  she  could  no  more  answer  that  simple  question 
than  she  could  the  sublime  question  which  the  moon  and 
stars  propounded.  .  .  .  That  breathless,  glittering  peace, 
was  it  not  wonderful?  It  seemed  to  beckon  and  allure, 
and  her  soul  yearned  for  that  peace  as  Connla's  had  for 
the  maiden.  Death  only  could  give  that  peace.  Did  the 
Fairy  Maiden  mean  death?  Did  the  plains  of  the  Ever 
Living,  which  the  Fairy  Maiden  had  promised  Connla  on 
the  condition  of  his  following  her,  lie  behind  those  specks 
of  light  ? 

But  what  end  should  she  choose  for  herself  if  the  choice 
were  left  to  her — to  come  back  to  Dulwich  and  live  with 


200  EVELYN  INNBS. 

her  father  ?  She  might  do  that — but  when  her  father  died  ? 
Then  she  hoped  that  she  might  die.  But  she  might  out- 
live him  for  thirty  years — Evelyn  Innes,  an  old  woman, 
talking  to  the  few  friends  who  came  to  see  her,  of  the  days 
when  Wagner  was  triumphant,  of  her  reading  of  "  Isolde." 
Some  such  end  as  that  would  be  hers.  Or  she  might  end 
as  Lady  Asher.  She  might,  but  she  did  not  think  she 
would.  Owen  seemed  to  think  more  of  marriage  now 
than  he  used  to.  He  had  always  said  they  would  be 
married  when  she  retired  from  the  stage.  But  why  should 
she  retire  from  the  stage?  If  he  had  wanted  to  marry 
her  he  should  have  asked  her  at  first.  She  did  not  know 
what  she  was  going  to  do.  No  one  knew  what  they  were 
going  to  do.  They  simply  went  on  living.  That  moon- 
light was  melting  her  brain  away.  She  drew  down  the 
blinds,  and  she  fell  asleep  thinking  of  her  father's  choir 
and  the  beautiful  "  Missa  Brevis  "  which  she  was  going  to 
hear  to-morrow. 


XVII. 

As  they  went  to  church,  he  told  her  about  Monsignor 
Mostyn.  Evelyn  remembered  that  the  very  day  she  went 
away,  he  had  had  an  appointment  with  the  prelate,  and 
while  trying  to  recall  the  words  he  had  used  at  the  time 
— how  Monsignor  believed  that  a  revival  of  Palestrina 
would  advance  the  Catholic  cause  in  England — she  heard 
her  father  say  that  no  one  except  Monsignor  could  have 
succeeded  in  so  difficult  an  enterprise  as  the  reformation 
of  church  music  in  England. 

The  organ  is  a  Protestant  instrument,  and  in  organ 
music  the  London  churches  do  very  well;  the  Protestant 
congregations  are,  musically,  more  enlightened;  the  flat- 
test degradation  is  found  among  the  English  Catholics, 
and  he  instanced  the  Oratory  as  an  extraordinary  disgrace 
to  a  civilised  country,  relating  how  he  had  heard  the  great 
Mass  of  Pope  Marcellus  given  there  by  an  operatic  choir 
of  twenty  singers.  In  the  West-end  are  apathy  and  fash- 
ionable vulgarity,  and  it  was  at  St.  Joseph's,  Southwark, 
that  the  Church  had  had  restored  to  her  all  her  own  beauti- 


EVELYN  INNES.  201 

ful  music.  Monsignor  had  begun  by  coming  forward  with 
a  subscription  of  one  thousand  pounds  a  year,  and  by  such 
largesse  he  had  confounded  the  intractable  Jesuits  and 
vanquished  Father  Gordon.  The  poor  man  who  had  pre- 
dicted ruin  now  viewed  the  magnificent  congregation  with 
a  sullen  face.  "  He  has  a  nice  voice,  too,  that's  the  strange 
part  of  it;  I  could  have  taught  him,  but  he  is  too  proud 
to  admit  he  was  wrong."  However,  bon  gre  mal  gre,  Father 
Gordon  had  had  to  submit  to  Monsignor.  When  Mon- 
signor makes  up  his  mind,  things  have  to  be  done.  If  a 
thousand  pounds  had  not  been  enough,  he  would  have 
given  two  thousand  pounds;  Monsignor  was  rich,  but  he 
was  also  tactful,  and  did  not  rely  entirely  on  his  money. 
He  had  come  to  St.  Joseph's  with  the  Pope's  written  re- 
quest in  his  hand  that  St.  Joseph's  should  attempt  a  re- 
vival of  the  truly  Catholic  music,  if  sufficient  money  could 
be  obtained  for  the  choir.  So  there  was  no  gainsaying,  the 
Jesuits  had  had  to  submit,  for  if  they  had  again  objected 
to  the  expense,  Monsignor  would  come  forward  with  a  sub- 
scription of  two  thousand  a  year.  He  could  not  have  af- 
forded to  pay  so  much  for  more  than  a  limited  number  of 
years,  "  but  he  and  I  felt  that  it  was  only  necessary  to  start 
the  thing  for  it  to  succeed." 

Mr.  Innes  told  his  daughter  of  Monsignor's  social  influ- 
ence; Monsignor  had  the  command  of  any  amount  of 
money.  There  is  always  the  money,  the  difficulty  is  to 
obtain  the  will  that  can  direct  the  money.  Monsignor  was 
the  will.  He  was  all-powerful  in  Rome.  He  spent  his 
winters  and  springs  in  Rome,  and  no  one  thought  of  going 
to  Rome  without  calling  on  him.  It  was  through  him 
that  the  Pope  kept  in  touch  with  the  English  Catholics. 
He  had  a  confessional  at  St.  Joseph's,  and  he  was  au  mieux 
with  the  Jesuits.  It  was  the  influence  of  Monsignor  that 
had  given  Palcstrina  his  present  vogue.  But  a  revival  of 
Palestrina  was  in  the  air;  through  him  the  inevitable  re- 
action against  Wagner  was  making  itself  felt.  Monsignor 
had  made  all  the  rich  Catholics  understand  that  it  was 
their  duty  to  support  the  unique  experiment  which  some 
poor  Jesuits  in  Southwark  were  making,  and  the  fact  that 
he  had  come  forward  with  a  subscription  of  one  thousand 
a  year  enabled  him  to  ask  his  friends  for  1heir  money.  He 
had  told  Mr.  Innes  that  a  dinner  party  which  did  not  pro- 


202  EVELYN  INNES. 

duce  a  subscriber  he  looked  upon  as  a  dinner  wasted.  Mon- 
signor  knew  how  to  carry  a  thing  through;  his  influence 
was  extraordinary;  he  could  get  people  to  do  what  he 
wanted. 

Evelyn  and  her  father  had  so  much  to  say  that  it  did 
not  seem  as  if  they  ever  would  find  time  to  say  it  in.  There 
was  the  story  to  tell  of  the  construction  of  the  vast  choir 
and  the  difficulties  he  had  experienced  in  teaching  his  sing- 
ers to  read  at  sight,  for,  as  she  knew,  contrapuntal  music 
cannot  be  sung  except  by  singers  who  can  sing  unaccom- 
panied. The  trebles  and  the  altos  were  of  course  the  great 
difficulty;  the  boys  often  burst  into  tears;  they  said  they 
preferred  to  die  rather  than  endure  his  discipline.  But  he 
was  able  to  communicate  his  enthusiasm;  he  told  them 
stories  of  how  the  ancient  choirs  used  to  sing  Palestrina's 
masses  without  a  rehearsal,  how  the  ancient  choirs  used 
to  compete  one  against  the  other,  singing  music  they  had 
never  seen  against  men  in  the  opposite  organ  loft  whom 
they  did  not  even  know.  He  was  full  of  such  stories ;  they 
served  to  fire  the  boys'  enthusiasm,  and  to  change  dislike 
into  an  aspiration.  He  had  hypnotised  them  into  a  love  of 
Palestrina,  and  when  they  went  home  their  parents  had 
told  him  that  the  boys  were  always  talking  about  the  an- 
cient music,  and  that  they  sat  up  at  night  reading  motets. 
He  had  told  them  that  they  would  abandon  all  foolish 
pastimes  for  Palestrina,  and  they  had  in  a  measure;  in- 
stead of  batting  and  bowling,  their  ambition  became  sight 
singing.  Once  a  spirit  of  emulation  is  inspired,  great 
things  are  accomplished.  There  had  been  some  beautiful 
singing  at  St.  Joseph's.  Three  months  ago  he  believed  that 
his  choir  would  have  compared  with  some  of  the  sixteenth 
century  choirs.  Mr.  Innes  told  an  instructive  story  of 
how  he  had  lost  a  most  extraordinary  treble,  the  best  he 
had  ever  had.  No,  he  had  not  lost  his  voice;  a  casual 
word  had  done  the  mischief.  The  boy  had  happened  to 
tell  his  mother  that  Mr.  Innes  had  said  that  he  would  give 
up  cricket  for  Palestrina,  and  she,  being  a  fool,  had  laughed 
at  him.  Her  laughter  had  ruined  the  boy;  he  had  refused 
to  sing  any  more ;  he  had  become  a  dissipated  young  rascal, 
up  to  every  mischief.  Unfortunately,  before  he  left  he  had 
influenced  other  boys;  many  had  to  be  sent  av.ay  as  use- 
less; and  it  was  only  now  that  his  choir  was  beginning  to 


EVELYN  IXNES.  203 

recover  from  this  egregious  calamity.  But  though  the  dif- 
ficulty of  the  trebles  and  the  altos  was  always  the  difficulty 
of  his  choir,  it  no  longer  seemed  insuperable.  With  the 
large  amount  of  money  at  his  disposal,  he  could  afford 
to  pay  almost  any  amount  of  money  for  a  good  treble  or 
alto,  so  every  boy  in  London  who  showed  signs  of  a  voice 
was  brought  to  him.  But  in  three  or  four  years  a  boy's 
voice  breaks,  and  the  task  of  finding  another  to  take 
his  place  has  to  be  undertaken.  Very  often  this  is  im- 
possible; there  are  times  when  there  are  no  voices.  The 
present  time  was  such  an  one,  and  he  fumed  at  the  foolish 
woman  whose  casual  word  had  broken  up  his  choir  three 
months  ago,  bemoaning  that  such  a  calamity  should  have 
happened  just  before  Monsignor's  return  from  Rome.  It 
was  for  that  reason  he  was  giving  the  "  Missa  Brevis,"  a 
small  work  easily  done.  He  declared  he  would  give  fifty 
pounds  to  recall  his  choir  of  three  months  ago,  just  for 
Evelyn  and  Monsignor  to  hear  it.  Evelyn  easily  believed 
that  he  would,  and  as  they  parted  inside  the  church  she 
said — 

"  I  wish  I  could  take  the  place  of  the  naughty  boy." 
A  look  of  hope  came  into  his  eyes,  but  it  died  away  in 
an  instant,  and  she  watched  his  despondent  back  as  he  went 
towards  the  choir  loft. 

The  influence  of  Monsignor  had  worked  great  changes 
at  St.  Joseph's — the  very  atmosphere  of  the  church  was 
different,  the  sensation  was  one  of  culture  and  refinement, 
instead  of  that  of  acrid  poverty.  From  the  altar  rail  to 
the  middle  of  the  aisle  the  church  was  crowded — in  the 
free  as  well  as  in  the  paying  parts.  From  the  altar  rails  to 
the  middle  of  the  aisle  there  were  chairs  for  the  ease  of  the 
subscribers,  and  for  those  who  were  willing  to  pay  a  fee 
of  two  shillings.  In  front  of  each  chair  was  a  comfortable 
kneeling  place,  and  slender,  gloved  hands  held  prayer- 
books  bound  in  morocco,  and  under  fashionable  hats,  filled 
with  bright  beads  and  shadowy  feathers,  veiled  faces  were 
bent  in  dainty  prayer.  Among  these  Evelyn  picked  out 
a  number  of  her  friends.  There  were  Lady  Ascott,  who 
missed  no  musical  entertainment  of  whatever  kind,  even 
when  it  took  place  in  church,  and  Lady  Gremaldin,  who 
thought  she  was  listening  to  Wagner  when  she  was  think- 
ing of  the  tenor  whom  she  would  take  away  to  supper  in 


204  EVELYN  INXES. 

her  brougham  after  the  performance.  .  .  .  Evelyn  naught 
sight  of  a  painter  or  two  and  a  man  of  letters  who  used 
to  come  to  her  father's  concerts.  Suddenly  she  saw  Ulick 
standing  close  by  her;  he  had  not  seen  her,  and  was  looking 
for  a  seat.  Catching  sight  of  her,  he  came  and  sat  in  the 
chair  next  to  hers.  Almost  at  the  same  moment  the  aco- 
lytes led  the  procession  from  the  sacristy.  They  were  fol- 
lowed by  the  sub-deacon,  the  deacon  and  the  priest  who 
was  to  sing  the  Mass.  When  the  Mass  began  the  choir 
broke  forth,  singing  the  Introit. 

The  practice  of  singing  in  church  proceeds  from  the 
idea  that,  in  the  exaltation  of  prayer,  the  soul,  having 
reached  the  last  limit  obtainable  by  mere  words,  demands  an 
extended  expression,  and  finds  it  in  song.  The  earliest 
form  of  music,  the  plain  chant  or  Gregorian,  is  sung  in  uni- 
son, for  it  was  intended  to  be  sung  by  the  whole  congrega- 
tion, but  as  only  a  few  in  every  congregation  are  musi- 
cians, the  idea  of  a  choir  could  not  fail  to  suggest  itself; 
and,  once  the  idea  of  a  choir  accepted,  part  writing  fol- 
lowed, and  the  vocal  masses  of  the  sixteenth  century  were 
the  result.  Then  the  art  of  religious  music  had  gone  as  far 
as  it  could,  and  the  next  step,  the  introduction  of  an  ac- 
companying instrument,  was  decadence. 

The  "  Missa  Brevis  "  is  one  of  the  most  exquisite  of  the 
master's  minor  works.  It  is  written  for  four  voices,  and 
with  the  large  choir  at  his  command,  Mr.  Innes  was  able  to 
put  eight  to  ten  voices  on  a  part;  and  hearing  voices  dart- 
ing, voices  soaring,  voices  floating,  weaving  an  audible  em- 
broidery, Evelyn  felt  the  vanity  of  accompaniment  in- 
struments. Upon  the  ancient  chant  the  new  harmonies 
blossomed  like  roses  on  an  old  gnarled  stem,  and  when  on 
the  ninth  bar  of  the  "  Kyrie  "  the  tenors  softly  separated 
from  the  sustained  chords  of  the  other  parts,  the  effect  was 
as  of  magic.  Evelyn  lifted  her  eyes  and  saw  her  dear  fa- 
ther conducting  with  calm  skill. 

She  had  heard  the  Mass  in  Rome,  and  remembered  the 
beautiful  phrase  which  opens  the  "  Kyrie "  and  which  is 
the  essence  of  the  first  part  of  that  movement.  But  the 
altos  had  not  the  true  alto  quality;  they  were  trebles  sing- 
ing in  the  lower  register  of  their  voices.  Leaning  townrds 
her  Ulick  whispered,  "  The  altos  are  not  quite  in  tune." 


EVELYN  INNES.  205 

She  had  heard  nothing  wrong,  but,  seeing  that  he  was  con- 
vinced, she  resolved  to  submit  the  matter  to  her  father's 
decision.  She  had  every  confidence  in  the  accuracy  of  her 
ear;  but  last  night  her  father  had  said  that  the  modern 
musical  ear  was  not  nearly  so  fine  as  the  ancient,  trained 
to  the  exact  intervals  of  the  monochord,  instead  of  the 
coarse  approximation  of  the  keyboard. 

She  remembered  that  when  she  had  heard  the  Mass  in 
Rome  there  was  a  moment  when  she  had  longed  for  the 
sweet  concord  of  a  pure  third.  Now,  when  it  came  at  the 
end  of  the  first  note  of  the  bases,  Ulick  said,  "  It  is  as  sharp 
as  that  of  an  ordinary  piano."  It  had  not  seemed  so  to  her, 
and  she  wondered  if  her  ear  had  deteriorated,  if  the  cor- 
rupting influence  of  modern  chromatic  music  had  been  too 
strong,  if  she  had  lost  her  ear  in  the  Wagner  drama.  The 
coarse  intonation  was  more  obvious  in  the  "  Christe  Elei- 
son,"  sung  by  four  solo  voices,  than  in  the  "  Kyrie,"  sung 
by  the  full  choir;  and  she  did  catch  a  slight  equivocation, 
and  the  discovery  tended  to  make  her  doubt  Ulick's  asser- 
tion that  the  altos  were  wrong  in  the  "  Kyrie,"  for,  if  she 
heard  right  in  one  place,  why  did  she  not  hear  right  in 
another?  The  leading  treble  had  a  hard,  unsympathetic 
voice,  which  did  not  suit  the  florid  passages  occurring  three 
times  on  the  second  syllable  of  the  word  Eleison.  He  ham- 
mered them  instead  of  singing  them  tenderly,  with  just  the 
sense  of  a  caress  in  the  voice. 

But  outside  of  such  extreme  criticism,  in  the  audience 
of  the  ordinary  musical  ear,  the  beautiful  "  Missa  Brevis  " 
was  as  well  given  as  it  could  be  given  in  modern  times,  and 
Evelyn  was,  of  course,  anxious  to  see  the  great  prelate  to 
whose  energetic  influence  the  revival  of  this  music  was 
owing,  the  man  who  had  helped  to  make  her  dear  father's 
life  a  satisfaction  to  him.  It  was  just  slipping  into  dis- 
appointment when  the  prelate  had  come  to  save  it.  This 
was  why  Evelyn  was  so  interested  in  him — why  she  was  al- 
ready attracted  toward  him.  It  was  for  this  reason  she  was 
sitting  in  one  of  the  front  chairs,  near  to  where  Monsignor 
would  have  to  pass  on  his  way  to  the  pulpit.  He  was  to 
preach  that  Sunday  at  St.  Joseph's.  .  .  .  He  passed  close  to 
her,  and  she  had  a  clear  view  of  his  thin,  hard,  handsome 
face,  dark  in  colour  find  severe  as  a  piece  of  mediaeval  wood 
carving;  a  head  small  aud  narrow  across  the  temples,  as  if 


206  EVELYN  INNES. 

it  had  been  squeezed.  The  eyes  were  bright  brown,  and 
fixed;  the  nose  long  and  straight,  with  clear-cut  nostrils. 
She  noticed  the  thin,  mobile  mouth  and  the  swift  look  in 
the  keen  eyes — in  that  look  he  seemed  to  gather  an  exact 
notion  of  the  congregation  he  was  about  to  address. 

Already  Evelyn  trembled  inwardly.  The  silence  was 
quick  with  possibility;  anything  might  happen — he  might 
even  publicly  reprove  her  from  the  pulpit,  and  to  strength- 
en her  nerves  against  this  influence,  she  compared  the  pres- 
ent tension  to  that  which  gathered  her  audience  together 
as  one  man  when  the  moment  approached  for  her  to  come 
on  the  stage.  All  were  listening,  as  if  she  were  going  to 
sing;  it  remained  to  be  seen  if  the  effect  of  his  preaching 
equalled  that  of  her  singing.  She  was  curious  to  see. 

"  I  say  unto  you,  that  likewise  joy  shall  be  in  heaven 
over  one  sinner  that  repenteth,  more  than  over  ninety  and 
nine  just  persons,  which  need  no  repentance."  In  intro- 
ducing this  text  he  declared  it  to  be  one  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful and  hopeful  in  Scripture.  Was  it  the  sweet,  clear  voice 
that  lured  the  different  minds  and  led  them,  as  it  were,  in 
leash  ?  Or  was  it  that  slow,  deliberate,  persuasive  manner  ? 
Or  was  it  the  benedictive  and  essentially  Christian  creed 
which  he  preached  that  disengaged  the  weight  from  every 
soul,  allowing  each  to  breathe  an  easier  and  sweeter  breath  ? 
To  one  and  all  it  seemed  as  if  they  were  listening  to  the 
voice  of  their  own  souls,  rather  than  that  of  a  living  man 
whom  they  did  not  know,  and  who  did  not  know  them. 
The  preacher's  voice  and  words  were  as  the  voices  they 
heard  speaking  from  the  bottom  of  their  souls  in  moments 
of  strange  collectedness.  And  as  if  aware  of  the  spiritual 
life  he  had  awakened,  the  preacher  leaned  over  the  pulpit 
and  paused,  as  if  watching  the  effect  of  his  will  upon  the 
congregation.  The  hush  trembled  into  intensity  when  he 
said,  "  Yes,  and  not  only  in  heaven,  but  on  earth  as  well, 
there  shall  be  joy  when  a  sinner  repents.  This  can  be  veri- 
fied, not  in  public  places  where  men  seek  wealth,  fame  and 
pleasure — there,  there  shall  be  only  scorn  and  sneers — but 
in  the  sanctuary  of  every  heart;  there  is  no  one,  I  take  it, 
who  has  not  at  some  moment  repented."  Instantly  Evelyn 
remembered  Florence.  Had  her  repentance  there  been  a 
joy  or  a  pain?  She  had  not  persevered.  At  that  moment 
she  heard  the  preacher  ask  if  the  most  painful  moments  of 


EVELYN  IXXES.  207 

our  lives  were  the  result  of  our  having  followed  the  doc- 
trine of  Jesus  or  the  doctrine  of  the  world?  He  instanced 
the  gambler  and  the  libertine,  who  willingly  confessed 
themselves  unhappy,  but  who,  he  asked,  ever  heard  of  the 
good  man  saying  he  was  unhappy  ?  The  tedium  of  life  the 
good  man  never  knows.  Men  have  been  known  to  regret 
the  money  they  spent  on  themselves,  but  who  has  ever  re- 
gretted the  money  he  has  spent  in  charity?  But  even  suc- 
cess cannot  save  the  gambler  and  libertine  from  the  tedium 
of  existence,  and  when  the  preacher  said,  "  These  men  dare 
not  be  alone,"  Evelyn  thought  of  Owen,  and  of  her  constant 
efforts  to  keep  him  amused,  distracted;  and  when  the 
preacher  said  it  was  impossible  for  the  sinner  to  abstract 
himself,  to  enter  into  his  consciousness  without  hearing  it 
reprove  him,  Evelyn  thought  of  herself.  The  preacher 
made  no  distinctions;  all  men,  he  said,  when  they  are  sin- 
cere with  themselves,  are  aware  of  the  difference  between 
good  and  evil  living.  When  they  listen  the  voice  is  always 
audtble;  even  those  who  purposely  close  their  ears  often 
hear  it.  Eor  this  voice  cannot  be  wholly  silenced;  it  can 
be  stifled  for  a  while,  but  it  can  be  no  more  abolished  than 
the  sound  of  the  sea  from  the  shell.  "  As  a  shell,  man  is 
murmurous  with  morality." 

Of  the  rest  of  the  sermon  Evelyn  heard  very  little.  .  .  . 
It  was  the  phrase  that  if  we  look  into  our  lives  we  shall  find 
that  our  most  painful  moments  are  due  to  our  having  fol- 
lowed the  doctrine  of  the  world  instead  of  the  doctrine  of 
Christ  that  touched  Evelyn.  It  seemed  to  explain  things 
in  herself  which  she  had  never  understood.  It  told  her  why 
she  was  not  happy.  .  .  .  Happy  she  had  never  been,  and  she 
had  never  understood  why.  Because  she  had  been  leading 
a  life  that  was  opposed  to  what  she  deemed  to  be  essentially 
right.  How  very  simple,  and  yet  she  had  never  quite  ap- 
prehended it  before;  she  had  striven  to  close  her  ears,  but 
she  had  never  succeeded.  Why?  Because  that  whisper 
can  be  no  more  abolished  than  the  murmur  of  the  sea 
from  the  shell.  How  true!  That  murmur  had  never  died 
out  of  her  ears ;  she  had  been  able  to  stifle  it  for  a  while — 
she  had  never  been  able  to  abolish  it — and  what  convincing 
proof  this  was  of  the  existence  of  God ! 

Disprove  it  you  couldn't,  for  it  was  part  of  one's  senses 
— the  very  evidence  on  which  the  materialists  rely  to  prove 
14 


208  EVELYN  INNES. 

/  . 

1hat  beyond  this  world  there  is  nothing.    Yet  what  a  fla- 
grant contradiction  her  conduct  was  to  the  murmur  of 
spiritual  existence!     And  that  was  why  she  was  not  happy. 
That  was  why  she  would  never  be  happy  till  she  reformed. 
.  .  .  But  the  preacher  spoke  as  if  it  were  easy  for  all  who 
wished  it  to  change  their  lives.     How  was  she  to  change 
her  life?     Her  life  was  settled  and  determined  for  her  ever 
since  the  day  she  went  away  with  Owen.     If  she  sent  Owen 
away  again  the  same  thing  would  happen;  she  would  take 
him  back.     She  could  not  remain  on  the  stage  without  a 
lover;  she  would  take  another  before  a  month  was  out. 
It  was  no  use  for  her  to  deceive  herself !     That  is  what  she 
would  do.     To  sing  Isolde  and  live  a  chaste  life,  she  did  not 
believe  it  to   be  possible — and   she   sat   helpless,   hearing 
vaguely  the  Credo,  her  attention  so  distracted  that  she  was 
only  half  aware  of  its  beauty.     She  noticed  that  the  "  Et 
incarnatus  est  "  was  inadequately  rendered,  but  that  she  ex- 
pected.    It  would  require  the  strange,  immortal  voices  she 
had  heard  in  Rome.     But  the  vigour  with  which  the  basses 
led  the  "  Et  resurrcxit "  was  such  that  the  other  parts  could 
not  choose  but  follow.     She  felt  thankful  to  them;  they 
dissipated  her  painful  personal  reverie.     Yes,  the  basses 
were  the  best  part  of  the  choir ;  among  them  she  recognised 
two  of  her  father's  oldest  pupils;  she  had  known  them  as 
boys  singing  alto — beautiful   voices   they  had  been,   and 
were  not  less  beautiful  now.     But  if  she  desired  to  reform 
her  life,  how  was  she  to  begin?     She  knew  what  the  priest 
would  tell  her.     He  would  say,  send  away  your  lover;  but 
to  send  him  away  in  the  plenitude  of  her  success  would  be 
odious.     He  was  unhappy,  he  was  ill;  he  needed  her  sorely. 
His  mother's  health  was  a  great  anxiety  to  him,  and  if,  on 
the  top  of  all,  she  were  to  announce  that  she  intended 
leaving  him,  he  would  break  down  altogether.     She  owed 
everything  to  him.     No,  not  even  for  the  sake  of  her  im- 
mortal soul  would  she  do  anything  that  would  give  him 
pain.     But  he  had  been  anxious  to  marry  her  for  some  time. 
Would  she  make  him  a  good  wife?     She  was  fond  of  him; 
she  would  do  anything  for  him.     She  had  travelled  hun- 
dreds of  miles  to  see  him  when  he  was  ill,  and  the  other 
night  she  could  not  sleep  because  she  fearod  he  was  un- 
happy about  his  mother's  health.     She  would  marry  him  if 
he   asked   her.     On   that   point  she   was  certain.     Refuse 


EVELYN  INNES.  209 

Owen?  Not  for  anything  that  could  be  offered  her;  noth- 
ing would  change  her  from  that.  Nothing !  Her  resolve 
was  taken.  No,  it  was  not  taken ;  it  was  there  in  her  heart. 

And  at  the  moment  when  the  Elevation  bell  rang  she 
decided  not  only  to  accept  Owen  if  he  asked  her,  but  to  use 
all  her  influence  to  induce  him  to  ask  her.  This  seemed 
to  her  equivalent  to  a  resolution  to  reform  her  life,  and, 
happier  in  mind,  she  bowed  her  head,  and  as  a  very  un- 
worthy Catholic,  but  still  a  Catholic,  and  feeling  no  longer 
us  an  alien  and  an  outcast,  she  assisted  at  the  mystery  of 
the  Mass.  She  even  ventured  to  offer  up  a  vague  prayer, 
and  when  the  dread  interval  was  over,  she  remembered  that 
her  father  had  spoken  to  her  of  the  second  "  Agnus  Dei " 
as  an  especially  beautiful  number.  It  was  for  five  voices; 
exquisitely  prayerful  it  seemed  to  her.  With  devout  insist- 
ence the  theme  is  reiterated  by  the  two  soprani,  then  the 
voices  are  woven  together,  and  the  simile  that  rose  up  in 
her  mind  was  the  pious  image  of  fingers  interlaced  in 
prayer. 

The  first  thrill,  the  first  impression  of  the  music  over, 
she  applied  herself  to  the  disection  of  it,  so  that  she  might 
be  able  to  discuss  it  with  Ulick  and  her  father  afterwards. 
This  beautiful  melody,  apparently  so  free,  was  so  exquisite- 
ly contrived  that  it  contained  within  itself  descant  and 
harmony.  She  knew  it  well;  it  is  a  strict  ca'non  in  unison, 
and  she  had  heard  it  sung  by  two  grey-haired  men  in  the 
Papal  choir  in  Rome,  soprano  voices  of  a  rarer  and  more 
radiant  timbre  than  any  woman's  sexful  voice,  and  subtle, 
and,  in  some  complex  way,  hardly  of  the  earth  at  all — voices 
in  which  no  accent  of  sex  transpired,  abstract  "voices  aloof 
from  any  stress  of  passion,  undistressed  by  any  longing, 
even  for  God.  They  were  not  human  voices,  and,  hearing 
them,  Evelyn  had  imagined  angels  bearing  tall  lilies  in 
their  hands,  standing  on  wan  heights  of  celestial  landscape, 
singing  their  clear  silver  music. 

These  men  had  sung  this  "  Agnus  Dei  "  as  perhaps  it 
never  would  be  sung  again,  but  she  knew  the  boy  treble 
to  be  incapable  of  singing  this  canon  properly,  so  she  could 
hardly  resist  the  impulse  to  run  up  to  the  choir  loft  and 
tell  her  father  breathlessly  that  she  would  take  his  place. 
She  smiled  at  the  consternation  such  an  act  would  occasion. 
Even  if  she  could  get  to  the  choir  loft  without  being 


210  EVELYN  INNES. 

noticed,  she  could  not  sing  this  music,  her  voice  was  full 
of  sex,  and  this  music  required  the  strange  sexless  timbre 
of  the  voices  she  had  heard  in  Rome.  But  the  boy  sang 
better  than  she  anticipated;  his  voice  was  wanting  in 
strength  and  firmness;  she  listened,  anxious  to  help  him, 
perplexed  that  she  could  not. 

The  last  Gospel  was  then  read,  and  she  followed  Ulick 
out  of  church. 


XVIIL 

ON  getting  outside  the  church  they  were  surprised  to 
find  that  it  had  been  raining.  The  shower  had  laid  the 
dust,  freshened  the  air,  and  upon  the  sky  there  was  a  beauti- 
ful flowerlike  bloom;  the  white  clouds  hung  in  the  blue  air 
uplifting  fugitive  palace  and  tower,  and  when  Evelyn  and 
Ulick  looked  into  this  mysterious  cloudland,  their  hearts 
overflowed  with  an  intense  joy. 

She  opened  her  parasol,  and  told  him  that  her  father 
was  lunching  with  the  Jesuits.  But  he  and  she  were  going 
to  dine  together  at  Dowlands:  and  after  dinner  they  were 
not  to  forget  to  practice  the  Bach  sonata  which  was  in  the 
programme  for  the  evening  concert.  She  thought  of  the 
long  day  before  them,  and  with  mixed  wonderment  and 
pleasure  of  how  much  better  they  would  know  each  other 
at  the  end  of  the  day.  She  wanted  to  know  how  he  thought 
and  felt  about  things;  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  he  could 
tell  her  all  that  she  yearned  to  know,  though  what  this  was 
she  did  not  know  herself. 

There  were  strange  hills  and  valleys  and  fabulous  pros- 
pects in  the  great  white  cloud  which  hung  at  the  end  of 
the  suburban  street,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  would 
like  to  wander  with  him  there  among  the  white  dells,  and 
to  stand  with  him  upon  the  high  pinnacles.  She  was  happy 
in  an  infinite  cloudland  while  he  told  her  of  her  father's 
struggle  to  obtain  mastery  in  St.  Joseph's.  But  she  ex- 
perienced a  passing  pang  of  regret  that  she  had  not  been 
present  to  witness  the  first  struggles  of  the  reformation. 

She  was  interested  in  the  part  that  Ulick  had  played  in 


EVELYN  INNES.  211 

it.  He  told  her  how  almost  every  week  he  had  written  an 
article  developing  some  new  phase  of  the  subject,  and  Eve- 
lyn told  him  how  her  father  had  told  her  of  the  extraordi- 
nary ingenuity  and  energy  with  which  he  had  continued  the 
propaganda  from  week  to  week.  When  her  father  was 
called  away  to  negotiate  some  financial  difficulty,  Ulick  had 
taken  charge  of  the  rehearsals.  Mr.  Innes  had  told  Evelyn 
that  Ulick  had  displayed  an  unselfish  devotion,  and  she 
added  that  he  had  been  to  her  father  what  Listz  had  been 
to  Wagner,  and  while  paying  this  compliment  she  looked 
at  him  in  admiration,  thanking  him  with  her  eyes.  Had 
it  not  been  for  him,  her  father  might  have  died  of  want 
of  appreciation,  killed  by  Father  Gordon's  obstinacy. 

"  But  you  came  to  him,"  she  said,  speaking  unwillingly, 
"  when  I  selfishly  left  him." 

Ulick  would  not  concede  that  he  was  worthy  of  any 
distinction  in  the  victory  of  the  old  music;  it  would  have 
achieved  its  legitimate  triumph  without  his  aid.  He  had 
merely  done  his  duty  like  any  private  soldier  in  the  ranks. 
But  from  first  to  last  all  had  depended  upon  Monsignor. 
Mr.  Innes  had  shown  more  energy  and  practical  intelli- 
gence than  anyone,  not  excepting  Evelyn  herself,  would 
have  credited  him  with;  he  had  interested  many  people  by 
his  enthusiasm,  but  nevertheless  he  had  remained  what  he 
Mras — a  man  of  ideas  rather  than  of  practice,  and  without 
Monsignor  the  reformation  would  have  come  to  naught. 
Evelyn  was  strangely  interested  to  know  what  Ulick 
thought  of  Monsignor,  and  she  waited  eager  for  him  to 
speak.  She  would  have  liked  to  hear  him  enthusiastic,  but 
he  said  that  Monsignor  was  no  more  than  an  Oxford  don 
with  a  taste  for  dogma  and  for  a  cardinal's  hat.  He  was 
not  a  man  of  ideas,  but  a  man  that  would  do  well  in  an 
election  or  a  strike.  He  was  what  folk  call  "  a  leader  of 
men,"  and  Ulick  held  that  power  over  the  passing  moment 
was  a  sign  of  inferiority.  Shakespeare  and  Shelley  and 
Blake  had  never  participated  in  any  movement;  they  were 
the  movement  itself,  they  were  the  centres  of  things. 
Christ,  too,  had  failed  to  lead  men,  he  was  far  too  much 
above  them;  but  St.  Paul,  the  man  of  inferior  ideas,  had 
succeeded  where  Christ  had  failed.  Mostyn,  he  main- 
tained, was  much  more  interested  in  dogma  than  in  re- 
ligion; he  abhorred  mysticism,  and  believed  in  organisa- 


212  EVELYN  INNES. 

tion.  He  considered  his  Church  from  the  point  of  view 
•of  a  trades  union.  An  unspiritual  man,  one  much  more 
interested  in  theology  than  in  God — an  able  shepherd  with 
an  instinct  for  lost  sheep  whose  fixed  and  commonplace 
ideas  gave  him  command  over  weak  and  exalted  natures,  na- 
tures which  were  frequently  much  more  spiritual  than 
his  own.  Evelyn  listened,  amused,  though  she  could  not 
think  of  Monsignor  quite  as  Ulick  did.  Monsignor  had 
said  that  if  we  ask  ourselves  to  what  our  unhappiness  is 
attributable,  we  find  that  it  is  attributable  to  having  fol- 
lowed the  way  of  the  world  instead  of  the  way  of  Christ. 
It  seemed  to  her  impossible'  that  a  man  of  inferior  intelli- 
gence such  as  TJlick  described  could  think  so  clearly.  She 
reminded  Ulick  of  these  very  sentences  which  had  so  great- 
ly moved  her,  and  it  flattered  her  to  hear  him  admit  it, 
that  the  idea  which  had  so  greatly  struck  her  was  pene- 
trating and  far  reaching,  but  he  denied  that  it  was  pos- 
sible that  it  could  be  Consignor's  own.  It  was  something 
he  had  got  out  of  a  book,  and  seeing  the  effect  that  could 
be  made  of  it,  he  had  introduced  it  into  his  sermon.  In 
support  of  this  opinion,  he  said  that  all  the  rest  of  the 
sermon  was  sententious  commonplace  about  the  soul,  and 
obedience  to  the  Church. 

"But  you  will  be  able  to  judge  for  yourself.  He  is 
coming  to  the  concert  to-night." 

"  Then  I  must  have  a  dress  to  wear,  I  suppose  he  would 
like  me  to  wear  sackcloth.  But  I  am  going  to  wear  a 
pretty  pink  silk,  which  I  hope  you  will  like.  Call  that 
hansom,  please." 

It  was  amusing  to  watch  her  write  the  note,  hear  her 
explain  to  the  cabman:  if  he  brought  back  the  right  dn->s 
he  was  to  get  a  sovereign.  It  was  amusing  to  stroll  on 
through  the  naked  Sunday  streets,  talking  of  the  nui-ic 
they  had  just  heard  and  of  Monsignor,  to  find  suddenly 
that  they  had  lost  their  way  and  could  see  no  one  to  direct 
them.  These  little  incidents  served  to  enhance  their  hap- 
piness. They  were  nearly  of  the  same  age,  and  were  con- 
scious of  it;  a  generation  is  but  a  large  family,  united  by 
ties  of  impulse  and  idea.  Evelyn  had  been  brought  up 
and  had  lived  outside  of  the  influence  of  her  own  gener- 
ation. Now  it  was  flashed  upon  lier  for  the  first  time, 
and  under  the  spell  of  its  instincts  she  ran  down  the  steps 


EVELYN  INNES.  213 

to  the  railway  and  jumped  into  the  moving  train.  Owen 
would  have  forbidden  her  this  little  recklessness,  but  Ulick 
accepted  it  as  natural,  and  they  sat  opposite  each  other, 
their  thoughts  lost  in  the  rustle  and  confusion  of  their 
blood.  She  was  conscious  of  a  delicious  inward  throbbing, 
and  she  liked  the  smooth  young  face,  the  colour  of  old 
ivory,  and  the  dark,  fixed  eyes  into  which  she  could  not 
look  without  trembling;  they  changed,  lighting  up  and 
clouding  as  his  thought  came  and  went.  She  found  an 
attraction  in  his  occasional  absent-mindedness,  and  won- 
dered of  what  he  was  thinking.  Looking  into  his  eyes, 
she  was  aware  of  a  mystery  half  understood,  and  she  could 
not  but  feel  that  this  enigma,  this  mystery,  was  essential 
to  her.  Her  life  seemed  to  depend  upon  it;  she  seemed  to 
have  come  upon  the  secret  at  last. 

It  was  amusing  to  walk  home  to  dinner  together  this 
bright  summer's  day,  and  to  tell  this  young  man,  to  whose 
intervention  it  pleased  her  to  think  that  she  owed  her 
reconciliation  to  her  father,  how  it  was  by  pretending  not 
to  understand  the  new  harpsichord  that  she  had  inveigled 
her  father  into  speaking  to  her.  .  .  .  But  it  was  only  one 
o'clock — an  hour  still  remained  before  dinner  would  be 
ready  at  Dowlands,  and  they  were  glad  to  dream  it  under 
the  delicious  chestnut  trees.  She  sat  intent,  moving  the 
tiny  bloom  from  side  to  side  with  her  parasol,  thinking  of 
her  father.  Suddenly  she  told  Ulick  of  the  Wotan  and 
Brunnhilde  scene,  which  she  had  always  played,  while 
thinking  of  the  real  scene  that  one  day  awaited  her  at  her 
father's  feet,  and  this  scene  she  had  at  last  acted,  if  you 
could  call  reality  acting.  She  was  dimly  aware  of  the  old 
Dulwich  street,  and  that  she  had  once  trundled  her  hoop 
there,  and  the  humble  motion  of  life  beneath  the  chestnut 
trees,  the  loitering  of  stout  housewives  and  husbands  in 
Sunday  clothes,  the  spare  figures  of  spinsters  who  lived 
in  the  damp  houses  which  lay  at  the  back  of  the  choked 
gardens  was  accepted  as  a  suitable  background  for  her  hap- 
piness. Her  joy  seemed  to  dilate  in  the  morning,  in  the 
fluttering  sensation  of  the  sunshine,  of  summer  already 
begun  in  the  distant  fields.  Inspired  by  the  scene,  Ulick 
began  to  hum  the  old  English  air,  "  Summer  is  a-coming 
in,"  n nd  without  raising  li<>r  e.vrs  from  the  chestnut  blooms 
that  fell  incessantly  on  the  pavement,  Evelyn  said — 


214  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  That  monk  had  a  beautiful  dream." 

And  for  a  while  they  thought  of  that  monk  at  Reading 
composing  for  his  innocent  recreation  that  beautiful  piece 
of  music;  they  hummed  it  together,  thinking  of  his  quiet 
monastery,  and  it  seemed  to  them  that  it  would  be  a  beau- 
tiful thing  if  life  were  over,  if  it  might  pass  away,  as  that 
monk's  life  had  passed,  in  peace,  in  aspiration  whether  of 
prayer  or  of  art.  Thinking  of  the  music  she  had  heard 
over  night,  that  she  had  hummed  through  and  that  her 
father  had  played  on  the  harpsichord,  she  said — 

"  And  you,  too,  had  a  beautiful  dream  when  you  wrote 
'  Connla  and  the  Fairy  Maiden'?" 

"  Ah,  your  father  showed  it  to  you ;  you  hadn't  told 
me." 

Then,  absorbed  in  his  idea,  never  speaking  for  effect, 
stripping  himself  of  every  adventitious  pleasure  in  the 
service  of  his  idea,  he  told  her  of  the  change  that  had  come 
upon  his  resflieticism  in  the  last  year.  He  had  been  or- 
ganist for  three  years  at  St.  Patrick's,  and  since  then  had 
been  interested  in  the  modes,  the  abandoned  modes  in 
which  the  plain  chant  is  written.  These  modes  were  the 
beginning  of  music,  the  original  source;  in  them  were 
written,  no  doubt,  the  songs  and  dances  of  the  folk  who 
died  two,  three,  four,  five  thousand  years  ago,  but  none  of 
this  music  has  been  preserved,  only  the  religious  chants 
of  this  distant  period  of  art  have  come  down  to  us,  and 
from  this  accident  has  sprung  the  belief  that  the  early 
modes  are  only  capable  of  expressing  religious  emotion. 
But  the  gayest  rhythms  can  be  written  in  these  modes  aa 
easily  as  in  the  ordinary  major  and  minor  scales.  It  was 
thought,  too,  that  the  modes  did  not  lend  themselves  to 
modulation,  but  by  long  study  of  them  Ulick  had  discov- 
ered how  they  may  be  submitted  to  the  science  of  modu- 
lation. 

"  I  see,"  Evelyn  replied  pensively.  "  The  first  line  writ- 
ten in  one  of  the  ancient  modes,  and  underneath  the  mel- 
ody, chromatic  harmonies." 

"  No,  that  would  be  horrible,"  Ulick  cried,  like  a  dog 
whose  tail  has  been  trodden  upon.  "  That  is  the  infamous 
ni'nlcrn  practice.  I  sock  the  harmony  in  the  sentiment  <>f 
the  melody  I  am  writing,  in  the  tonality  of  the  mode  I  am 
writing." 


EVELYN  INNES.  215 

And  then,  little  by  little,  they  entered  the  perilous  ques- 
tion of  the  ancient  modes.  There  were  several,  and  three 
were  as  distinctive  and  as  rich  sources  of  melody  and  har- 
mony as  the  ordinary  major  scale,  for  modern  music  limited 
itself  to  the  major  scale,  the  minor  scale  being  a  depend- 
ency. The  major  and  minor  modes  or  scales  had  sufficed 
for  two  or  three  centuries  of  music,  but  the  time  of  their 
exhaustion  was  approaching,  and  the  musicians  of  the  fu- 
ture would  have  to  return  to  the  older  scales.  He  re- 
fused to  admit  that  they  did  not  lend  themselves  to  modu- 
lation, and  he  answered,  when  Evelyn  suggested  that  the 
introduction  of  a  sharp  or  a  flat  was  likely  to  alter  the 
character  of  the  ancient  scales,  that  she  must  not  judge 
the  ancient  scales  by  what  had  already  been  written  in 
them;  it  was  nowise  his  intention  to  imitate  the  character 
of  the  plain  chant  melodies ;  she  must  not  confuse  the  sen- 
timent of  these  melodies  with  the  modes  in  which  they 
were  written.  It  might  be  that  in  adding  a  sharp  or  a 
flat  the  musician  destroyed  the  character  of  the  mode  which 
he  was  leaving  and  that  of  the  mode  he  was  passing  into, 
but  that  proved  nothing  except  his  want  of  skill.  His 
opera  was  written  not  only  in  the  three  ancient  modes,  but 
also  in  the  ordinary  major  and  minor  scales,  and  he  be- 
lieved that  he  had  enlarged  the  limits  of  musical  expression. 

He  was  not  the  first  young  man  she  had  met  with 
schemes  for  writing  original  music.  So  far  as  she  was 
capable  of  judging,  his  practice  was  better  than  his  theory. 
But  his  music  was  not  the  origin  of  her  interest  for  him. 
What  really  interested  her  were  his  beliefs;  her  personal 
interest  in  him  had  really  begun  when  he  had  said  that  he 
believed  in  a  continuous  revelation.  Of  this  revelation  he 
had  argued  that  Christ  was  only  a  part.  These  ideas, 
which  she  heard  for  the  first  time,  especially  interested 
her.  Owen's  agnosticism  had  given  her  freedom  and  com- 
mand of  this  world,  but  it  had  made  a  great  loneliness  in 
her  life  which  Owen  was  no  longer  able  to  fill.  Life 
seemed  a  desert  without  some  form  of  belief,  and  notwith- 
standing her  success,  her  life  was  often  intolerably  lonely. 
She  had  often  thought  of  the  world's  flowers  and  fruits  as 
mere  semblance  of  things  without  true  reality,  and  what 
seemed  a  bountiful  garden,  a  mere,  hard,  dry,  brilliant  dos- 
ert.  It  was  only  at  certain  moments,  of  course,  that  she 


216  EVELYN  INNES. 

thought  these  things,  but  sometimes  these  thoughts  quite 
unexpectedly  came  upon  her,  and  she  could  no  longer  con- 
ceal from  herself  the  fact  that  she  was  lonely  in  her  soul, 
and  that  she  was  growing  lonelier.  She  was  wearying  a 
little  of  all  the  visible  world,  beginning  to  hunger  for  the 
invisible,  from  which  she  had  closed  her  eyes  so  long,  but 
which,  for  all  that,  had  never  become  wholly  darkened 
to  her. 

Hearing  Ulick  speak  of  foreseeing  and  divinations  by  the 
stars  was  too  like  sweet  rain  in  a  dying  land;  and  as  they 
returned  to  Dowlands,  she  spoke  to  him  of  Moy  Mell  where 
Bodag  is  king,  of  the  Plain  of  the  Ever  Living,  of  Connla 
and  the  Fairy  Maiden  gliding  in  the  crystal  boat  over  the 
Western  Sea,  and  during  dinner  she  longed  to  ask  him  if 
he  believed  in  a  future  life. 

It  was  difficult  for  her,  who  had  never  spoken  on  such 
subjects  before,  to  disentangle  his  philosophy,  and  it  was 
not  until  he  said  that  we  must  not  believe  as  religionists 
do,  that  one  day  the  invisible  shall  become  the  visible,  that 
she  began  to  understand  him.  Such  doctrine,  he  said,  is 
paltry  and  materialistic,  worthy  of  the  theologian  and  the 
agnostic.  We  must  rather,  he  said,  seek  to  raise  and  p\i- 
rify  our  natures,  so  that  we  may  see  more  of  the  spiritual 
element  which  resides  in  things,  and  which  is  visible  to 
all  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  as  they  put  aside  their  grosser 
nature  and  attain  step  by  step  to  a  higher  point  of  vision. 
She  had  always  imagined  there  was  nothing  between  the 
materialism  of  Owen  and  the  theology  of  Monsignor. 
Ulick's  ideas  were  quite  new  to  her;  they  appealed  to  her 
imagination,  and  she  thought  she  could  listen  for  ever, 
and  was  disappointed  when  he  reminded  her  that  she  must 
practice  the  Bach  sonata  for  the  evening's  concert. 

It  did  not,  however,  detain  them  long,  for  she  found  to 
her  great  pleasure  that  she  had  not  lost  nearly  as  much  of 
her  playing  as  she  thought. 

The  evening  lengthened  out  into  long,  clear  hours  and 
thoughts  of  the  green  lanes;  and  to  escape  from  haunt- 
ings  of  Owen — the  music-room  it  seemed  still  to  hold 
echoes  of  his  voice — she  asked  him  to  walk  out  with  her. 
They  wandered  in  the  cloudli •--  evening.  They  sauntered 
]<-.\~\  the  picture  gallery,  and  the  fact  that  she  was  walking 
with  this  strange  and  somewhat  ambiguous  young  man  pro- 


EVELYN  INNES.  217 

yoked  her  to  think  of  herself  and  him  as  a  couple  from 
that  politely  wanton  assembly  which  had  collected  at  even- 
tide to  watch  a  pavane  danced  beneath  the  beauty  of  a 
Renaissance  colonnade,  and  to  accentuate  the  resemblance 
Evelyn  fluttered  her  parasol  and  said,  pointing  across  the 
yellow  meadows — 

"  Look  at  those  idle  clouds,  the  afternoon  is  falling 
asleep." 

She  walked  for  some  time  touched  with  the  sentiment 
that  the  evening  landscape  inspired,  a  little  uncertain 
whether  he  would  like  to  talk  further  about  his  spiritual 
nature,  and  whether  she  should  rest  contented  with  what 
she  knew  on  that  subject.  "It  is  only  curiosity,  but  I 
wonder  how  he  would  make  love — how  he'd  begin?  I 
wonder  if  he  cares  for  women  ?  "  It  was  some  time  before 
she  could  get  Ulick  to  talk  of  himself;  he  seemed  to  strive 
to  change  the  conversation  back  to  artistic  questions.  He 
seemed  absorbed  in  himself;  it  seemed  difficult  to  awaken 
him  out  of  his  absent-mindedness.  At  last  he  spoke  sud- 
denly, as  was  his  habit,  and  she  learned  that  the  scene  of 
his  first  love-making  was  a  beautiful  Normandy  park.  He 
was  more  explicit  about  the  park  than  the  lady,  and  he 
seemed  to  lay  special  stress  on  the  fact  that  the  great 
saloon  in  the  castle  was  hung  with  a  faded  tapestry.  The 
story  seemed  to  Evelyn  a  little  obscure,  but  she  gathered 
that  Ulick  had  been  tragically  separated  from  her,  whether 
by  the  intervention  of  another  woman  or  through  his  own 
fault  did  not  seem  clear.  The  story  was  vague  as  a  leg- 
end, and  Evelyn  was  not  certain  that  Ulick  had  not  in- 
vented the  park  and  the  tapestries  as  characteristic  deco- 
rations of  a  love  story  as  it  should  happen  to  him,  if  it  did 
happen. 

Love  as  a  theme  did  not  seem  to  suit  him;  he  seemed 
to  fade  from  her;  he  was  only  real  when  he  spoke  of  his 
ideas,  and  a  fleeting  comparison  between  him  and  herself 
passed  across  her  mind.  She  remembered  that  she  was  no 
longer  truly  herself  except  when  speaking  of  sensual  emo- 
tion. Everything  else  had  begun  to  seem  to  her  trivial, 
trite  and  uninteresting.  She  could  no  longer  take  an  inter- 
est in  ordinary  topics  of  conversation.  If  a  man  was  not 
going  to  make  love  to  her,  she  soon  began  to  lose  interest. 
...  A  long  sequence  of  possibilities  rose  in  her  mind,  and 


218  EVELYN  INNES. 

died  away  in  the  distance  like  nights  of  birds.  Suddenly 
she  began  to  sing,  and  they  had  a  long  and  interesting  talk 
about  her  rendering  of  Isolde  in  the  first  act.  For  a  mo- 
ment the  love  potion  seemed  as  if  it  would  carry  the  con- 
versation back  to  their  individual  experiences  of  the  essen- 
tial passion;  but  they  drifted  instead  into  a  discussion  re- 
garding the  practice  of  sorcery  in  the  middle  ages.  She 
was  surprised  to  learn  that  he  was  not  only  a  believer,  but 
was  apparently  an  adept  in  all  the  esoteric  arts.  But  the 
subject  being  quite  new  to  her,  she  followed  with  difficulty 
his  account  of  a  very  successful  evocation  of  the  spirit  of 
a  mediaeval  alchemist,  a  Fleming  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  wonder  often  interrupted  her  attention.  She  could  not 
reconcile  herself  to  the  belief  that  he  was  serious  in  all  he 
said,  and  he  often  spoke  of  the  Kabbala,  which  apparently 
was  the  secret  ritual  of  the  sect  of  which  he  was  a  member, 
perhaps  a  priest.  Between  whiles  she  thought  of  the  in- 
dignation with  which  Owen  would  hear  such  beliefs.  Then 
tempted  as  by  the  edge  of  an  abyss,  she  admired  Ulick's 
strange  appearance,  which  helped  to  make  his  story  credi- 
ble. She  could  no  longer  disbelieve,  so  simply  did  he  tell 
his  tales,  his  white  teeth  showing,  and  his  dark  eyes  rap- 
idly brightening,  and  clouding  as  he  mentioned  different 
spells  and  their  effects.  But  so  illusive  were  his  narratives 
that  she  never  quite  understood;  he  seemed  always  a  little 
ahead  of  her;  she  often  had  to  pause  to  consider  his  mean- 
ing, and  when  she  had  grasped  it,  he  was  speaking  of  some- 
thing else,  and  she  had  missed  the  links.  To  understand 
him  better  she  attempted  to  argue  with  him,  and  he  told 
her  of  the  incredible  explanation  that  Charcot,  the  emi- 
nent hypnotist,  had  had  to  fall  back  upon  in  order  to  ac- 
count materialistically  for  some  of  his  hypnotic  experi- 
ments, and  she  was  forced  to  admit  that  the  spiritualistic 
explanation  was  the  easier  to  believe. 

She  was  most  interested  when  he  spoke  of  the  College 
of  Adepts  and  the  Rosicrucians.  Life  as  he  spoke  seemed 
to  become  intense  and  exalted,  and  the  invisible  seemed  on 
the  point  of  becoming  visible  when  he  told  her  how  the 
brotherhood  greeted  each  other  with,  "  Man  is  God,  and 
son  of  God,  and  there  is  no  God  but  man."  He  repeated 
all  hr  could  remember  of  their  terrible  oath.  The  College 
of  Adepts,  she  learned,  was  the  antithesis  of  the  monastery. 


EVELYN  1NNES.  219 

The  monastery  is  passive  spirituality,  the  College  of  Adepts 
is  active  spirituality;  the  monastery  abases  itself  before 
God,  the  Adepts  seek  to  become  as  gods.  "  There  is  a 
spiritual  stream,"  he  said,  "  that  flows  behind  the  circum- 
stance of  history,  and  they  claim  that  all  religions  are  but 
vulgarisations  of  their  doctrine.  The  Adept,  by  conquer- 
ing passion  and  ignorance,  attains  a  mastery  over  change, 
and  so  prolongs  his  life  beyond  any  human  limit." 

She  begged  Ulick  not  to  forget  to  bring  the  book  of 
magic  which  contained  the  oath  of  the  Rosicrucians. 

It  was  now  after  eight,  and  they  returned  home,  watch- 
ing the  white  mists  creeping  up  the  blue  fields.  The  sky 
was  lucent  as  a  crystal,  and  the  purple  would  not  die  out  of 
the  west  until  nearly  midnight.  Evelyn  would  have  liked 
to  have  strayed  with  him  in  the  twilight,  for  as  the  land- 
scape darkened  his  strange  figure  grew  symbolic,  and  his 
words,  whether  by  beauty  of  verbal  expression  or  the  man- 
ner with  which  they  were  spoken,  seemed  to  bring  the 
unseen  world  nearer.  The  outside  world  seemed  to  slip 
back,  to  become  subordinate  as  earth  becomes  subordinate 
to  the  sky  when  the  stars  come.  Evelyn  felt  the  life  of 
the  flesh  in  which  Owen  had  placed  her  fall  from  her;  it 
became  dissipated;  her  life  rose  to  the  head,  and  looking 
into  the  mists  she  seemed  to  discover  the  life  that  haunts 
in  the  dark.  It  seemed  to  whisper  and  beckon  her. 

Her  father  was  in  the  music-room  when  they  returned, 
and  at  sight  of  him  she  forgot  Ulick  and  his  enchantments. 

"  Father,  dear,  I  am  so  proud  of  you."  Standing  by 
him,  her  hand  on  his  shoulder,  she  said,  "  Your  choir  is 
wonderful,  dear.  Palcstrina  has  been  heard  in  London 
at  last ! " 

She  told  him  that  she  had  heard  the  Mass  in  Rome,  but 
had  been  disappointed  in  the  papal  choir,  and  she  explained 
why  she  preferred  his  reading  to  that  of  the  Roman  musi- 
cian. But  he  would  not  be  consoled,  and  when  he  men- 
tioned that  the  altos  were  out  of  tune,  Ulick  looked  at 
Evelyn. 

"  Father,  dear,  Ulick  and  I  have  had  an  argument  about 
the  altos.  He  says  they  were  wrong  in  the  Kyrie.  Were 
they?" 

"  Of  course  they  were,  but  the  piano  has  spoilt  your  ear. 
What  was  I  saying  last  night  ? " 


220  EVELYN  INNES. 

He  took  down  a  violin  to  test  his  daughter's  ear,  and 
the  results  of  the  examination  were  humiliating  to  her. 

According  to  Mr.  Innes,  Bach  was  the  last  composer 
who  had  distinguished  between  A  sharp  and  B  flat.  The 
very  principle  of  Wagner's  music  is  the  identification  of 
the  two  notes. 

She  ran  out  of  the  room,  saying  that  she  must  change 
her  dress,  and  Mr.  Innes  looked  at  Ulick  interrogatively. 
He  seemed  a  little  confused,  and  hoped  he  had  not  hurt 
her  feelings,  and  Ulick  assured  him  that  to-morrow  she 
would  tell  the  incident  in  the  theatre,  that  she  would  be 
the  first  to  see  the  humour  of  it.  The  news  that  she  was 
staying  at  Dowlands,  and  the  presumption  that  she  would 
sing  at  the  concert,  had  brought  many  a  priest  from  St. 
Joseph's,  and  all  the  painters,  men  of  letters,  and  designers 
of  stained  glass,  and  all  the  old  pupils,  the  viol  players,  and 
the  madrigal  singers,  and  when  Evelyn  came  downstairs 
in  her  pink  frock,  she  was  surrounded  by  her  old  friends. 

"Do  come,  girls;  can  you  come  on  Thursday  night? 
I'll  send  you  seats.  It  would  be  such  a  pleasure  to  me  to 
sing  to  you,  but  not  to-night;  to-night  I  want  to  be  like 
old  times.  I  am  going  to  play  the  viola  da  gamba." 

"  But  you  used  to  sing  Elizabethan  songs  in  old  times." 

"  Yes,  but  father  thinks  I  have  lost  my  ear ;  I  shall  not 
sing  to-night." 

Ulick  laughed  outright;  the  others  looked  at  Evelyn 
amazed  and  a  little  perplexed,  and  the  consumptive  man 
who  wore  brown  clothes  and  who  had  asked  her  to  marry 
him  came  forward  to  congratulate  her.  But  while  talking 
to  him,  her  eyes  were  attracted  by  the  tall,  spare  ecclesiastic 
who  stood  talking  to  her  father.  She  thought  vaguely  of 
Ulick's  depreciation.  In  spite  of  herself  she  felt  herself 
gravitating  towards  him.  Several  times  she  nearly  broke 
off  the  conversation  with  the  consumptive  man :  her  feet 
seemed  to  acquire  a  will  of  their  own.  But  when  her  eyes 
and  thought  returned  to  the  consumptive  man,  her  heart 
filled  with  plaintive  terror,  for  she  could  not  help  thinking 
of  the  little  space  he  had  to  live,  and  how  soon  the  earth 
would  be  over  him.  She  met  in  his  eyes  a  clear,  plaintive 
look,  in  which  she  seemed  to  catch  sight  of  his  pathetic 
soul.  She  seemed  to  be  aware  of  it,  almost  in  contact 
with  it,  and  through  the  cy,  ,  she  divined  the  thought 


EVELYN  INNES.  221 

ing  there,  and  it  was  painful  to  her  to  think  that  it  was  of 
her  health  and  success  he  was  thinking.  She  could  see 
how  cruelly  she  reminded  him  of  his  folly  in  asking  her 
to  marry  him,  and  she  was  quite  sure  that  he  was  thinking 
now  how  very  lucky  for  her  it  was  that  she  had  refused 
him.  Pictures  were  formulating,  she  could  see,  in  his 
poor  mind  of  how  different  her  life  would  have  been  in  the 
home  he  had  to  offer  her,  and  all  this  seemed  to  her  so 
infinitely  pathetic  that  she  forgot  Ulick,  Monsignor  and 
everything  else.  Her  father  called  her. 

"  Evelyn,"  he  said,  "  let  me  introduce  you  to  Mon- 
signor." 

The  sight  of  a  priest  always  shocked  her;  the  austere 
face  and  the  reserved  manner,  the  hard  yet  kind  eyes,  that 
appearance  of  frequentation  of  the  other  world,  at  least  of 
the  hither  side  of  this,  impressed  her,  and  she  trembled  be- 
fore him  as  she  had  trembled  six  years  ago  when  she  met 
Owen  in  the  same  room.  And  when  the  concert  was  over,' 
when  she  lay  in  bed,  she  wondered.  She  asked  herself  how 
it  was  that  a  little  ordinary  conversation  about  church 
singing — Palestrina,  plain  chant,  the  papal  choir,  and  the 
rest  of  it — should  have  impressed  her  so  vividly,  should 
have  excited  her  so  much  that  she  could  not  get  to  sleep. 

She  remembered  the  discontent  when  it  began  to  be 
perceived  that  she  did  not  intend  to  sing,  and  how  Julia 
had  said,  when  it  came  to  her  to  sing,  that  she  did  not 
dare.  Julia  had  fixed  her  eyes  on  her,  and  then  everyone 
seemed  to  be  looking  at  her.  The  consumptive  man  was 
emboldened  to  demand  "  Elsa's  dream,"  but  she  had  re- 
fused to  sing  for  him.  She  was  determined  that  nothing 
would  induce  her  to  sing  that  night,  but  suddenly  Mon- 
signor had  said — 

"  I  hope  you  will  not  refuse  to  sing,  Miss  Innes.  Re- 
member that  I  cannot  go  to  the  opera  to  hear  you." 

"  If  you  wish  to  hear  me,  Monsignor,  I  shall  be  pleased 
indeed." 

It  was  impossible  for  her  to  refuse  Monsignor;  it  was 
out  of  the  question  that  she  should  refuse  to  sing  for  him. 
If  he  had  wished  it,  she  would  have  had  to  sing  the  whole 
evening.  All  that  was  quite  true,  but  there  seemed  to  be 
another  reason  which  she  could  not  define  to  herself.  It 
had  given  her  infinite  pleasure  to  sing  to  Monsignor,  a 


222  EVELYN  IXNES. 

pleasure  she  had  never  experienced  before,  not  at  least  for 
a  very  long  while,  and  wondering  what  was  about  to  hap- 
pen, she  fell  asleep. 


XIX. 

THE  music-room  had  seemed  haunted  with  Owen's  voice, 
and  yesterday  she  had  asked  Ulick  to  walk  with  her  in  the 
lanes  so  that  she  might  escape  from  it.  But  to-day  half- 
pleased,  half-perplexed  by  her  own  perversity,  she  could 
not  resist  taking  him  to  the  picture  gallery — she  wanted 
to  show  him  "  The  Colonnade." 

The  picture  was  merged  in  shadow,  and  no  longer  the 
picture  she  remembered;  but  when  the  sun  shone,  all  the 
rows  quickened  with  amorous  intrigue,  and  the  little  lady 
held  out  her  striped  skirt  (she  had  lost  none  of  her  bland 
delight),  and  the  gentleman  who  advanced  to  meet  her 
bowed  with  the  mock  humility  of  yore,  and  the  beautiful 
perspectives  of  the  colonnade  floated  into  the  hush  of  the 
trees,  and  the  fountain  warbled. 

For  a  reason  which  eluded  her,  she  was  anxious  to  know 
how  this  picture  would  strike  Ulick,  and  she  tried  to  draw 
from  him  his  ideas  concerning  it. 

"  Their  thoughts,"  he  said,  "  are  not  in  their  evening 
parade;  something  quite  different  is  happening  in  their 
hearts.  .  .  ."  And  while  waiting  for  her  parasol  and  his 
stick,  he  said — 

"  I  can  see  that  you  always  liked  that  picture ;  you've 
seen  it  often  before." 

She  had  been  longing  to  speak  of  Owen.  He  seemed 
always  about  them,  and  in  phantasmal  presence  he  seemed 
to  sunder  them,  to  stand  jailor-like.  It  was  only  by  speak- 
ing of  Owen  that  his  interdiction  could  be  removed,  and 
she  said  that  she  had  often  been  to  the  gallery  with  him. 
Having  said  so  much  it  was  easy  to  tell  Ulick  of  the  story 
of  the  three  days  of  hesitation  which  had  preceded  her 
elopement. 

"The  Colonnade,"  and  "The  Lady  playing  tho  Vir- 
ginal," had  seemed  to  her  symbols  of  the  different  lives 


EVELYN  INNES.  223 

which  that  day  had  been  pressed  upon  her  choice.  Ulick 
explained  that  Fate  and  free  are  not  as  irreconcilable  as 
tlif.v  seem.  For  before  birth  it  is  given  to  us  to  decide 
whether  we  shall  accept  or  reject  the  gift  of  life.  So  we  are 
at  once  the  creatures  and  the  arbiters  of  destiny.  These 
metaphysics  excited  and  then  eluded  her  perceptions,  and 
she  hastened  to  tell  him  how  she  had  stood  at  the  corner  of 
T'crkeley  Square,  seeing  the  season  passing  under  the  green 
foliage,  thinking  how  her  life  was  summarised  in  a  single 
moment.  She  remembered  even  the  lady  who  wore  the 
bright  irises  in  her  bonnet;  but  she  neglected  to  mention 
her  lest  Ulick  should  think  that  it  was  memory  of  this 
woman's  horses  that  had  decided  her  to  the  choice  of  her 
pair  of  chestnuts.  She  told  him  about  the  journey  to 
France,  the  buying  of  the  trousseau,  and  the  day  that 
Madame  Savelli  had  said,  "  If  you'll  stay  with  me  a  year, 
I'll  make  something  wonderful  of  you."  She  told  him  how 
Owen  had  sent  her  to  the  Bois  by  herself,  and  the  madness 
that  had  risen  to  her  brain;  and  how  near  she  had  been  to 
standing  up  in  the  carriage  and  asking  the  people  to  listen 
to  her.  She  told  the  tale  of  all  this  mental  excitement 
fluently,  volubly,  carried  away  by  the  narrative.  Suddenly 
she  ceased  speaking,  and  sat  absorbed  by  the  mystery. 

She  sat  looking  into  that  corner  of  the  garden  where 
the  gardener  on  a  high  ladder  worked  his  shears  without 
pausing.  The  light  branches  fell,  and  she  thought  of  how 
she  had  grown  up  in  this  obscure  suburb  amid  old  instru- 
ments and  old  music.  She  remembered  her  yearning  for 
fame  and  love;  now  she  had  both,  love  and  fame.  But 
wilhin  herself  nothing  was  changed;  the  same  little  soul 
was  now  as  it  had  been  long  ago,  she  could  hear  it  talking, 
living  its  intense  life  within  her  unknown  to  everyone,  an 
uncommunicable  thing,  unchanged  among  much  change. 
She  remembered  how  Owen,  like  Siegfried,  had  come  to 
release  her,  and  all  the  exhausting  passion  of  that  time. 
She  had  sat  with  him  under  this  very  tree.  She  was  sitting 
there  now  with  Ulick.  Everything  was  changed,  yet  every- 
thing was  the  same.  .  .  .  She  was  going  to  fall  in  love 
with  another  man,  that  was  all. 

She  awoke  with  a  start,  frightened  as  by  a  dream;  and 
before  she  had  time  to  inquire  of  herself  if  the  dream  might 
come  true,  she  remembered  the  girl  with  whom  Ulick  used 
15 


224  EVELYN  INNES. 

to  play  Mozart  in  a  drawing-room  hung  with  faded  tapes- 
tries. She  feared  that  he  would  divulge  nothing,  and  to 
her  surprise  he  told  her  that  it  had  happened  two  years 
ago  at  Dieppe,  where  he  had  gone  for  a  month's  holiday. 
At  that  time  when  he  was  writing  "  Connla  and  the  Fairy 
Maiden."  He  had  composed  a  great  deal  of  the  music 
by  the  sea  shore  and  in  sequestered  woods;  and  to  assist 
himself  in  the  composition  of  the  melodies,  he  used  to  take 
his  violin  with  him.  One  day,  while  wandering  along  the 
dusty  high  road  on  the  look  out  for  a  secluded,  shady  place. 
he  had  come  upon  what  seemed  to  be  a  private  park.  It 
was  guarded  by  a  high  wall,  and  looking  through  an  iron 
gate  that  had  been  left  ajar,  he  was  tempted  by  the  stillness 
of  the  glades.  "  A  music-haunted  spot  if  ever  there  was 
one,"  he  said  to  himself;  and  encouraged  by  the  persuasion 
of  a  certain  melody  which  he  felt  he  could  work  out  there, 
and  nowhere  but  there,  he  pushed  the  gate  open,  and  en- 
tered the  park.  A  perfect  place  it  seemed  to  him,  no  one 
but  the  birds  to  hear  him,  and  the  sun's  rays  did  not  pierce 
the  thick  foliage  of  the  sycamore  grove.  Never  did  place 
correspond  more  intimately  with  the  mood  of  the  mo- 
ment, and  he  played  his  melody  over  and  over  again,  every 
now  and  then  stopping  to  write.  Her  step  was  so  light, 
and  he  was  so  deep  in  his  music,  that  he  did  not  hear  it. 
.  .  .  She  had  been  listening  doubtless  for  some  time  before 
lie  had  seen  her.  He  spoke  very  little  French,  and  she  very 
little  English,  but  he  easily  understood  that  she  wished  him 
to  go  on  playing.  A  little  later  her  father  and  mother  had 
come  through  the  trees;  she  had  held  up  her  hand,  bidding 
them  be  silent.  Uliek  could  see  by  the  way  they  listened 
that  they  were  musicians.  So  he  was  invited  to  the  villa 
which  stood  in  the  centre  of  the  park,  and  till  the  end  of 
his  holiday  he  went  there  every  day.  The  girl — Eli  a  no 
was  her  beautiful  name — was  an  exquisite  musician.  They 
had  played  Mozart  in  the  room  hung  with  faded  tapestries, 
or,  begtiiled  by  the  sunshine,  they  had  walked  in  the  park. 
When  Evelyn  asked  him  what  they  said,  he  answered  sim- 
ply. "  We  said  that  we  loved  each  other."  But  when  ho 
returned  to  Dieppe  three  months  later,  all  was  changed. 
When  he  spoke  of  their  marriage  she  laughed  the  question 
away,  and  he  perceived  that  his  visits  were  not  desir.  d: 
on  returning  to  England,  all  his  letters  were  returned  to 


EVELYN  INNES.  225 

him.  .  .  .  Soon  after  she  married  a  Protestant  clergyman, 
and  last  year  she  had  had  a  baby. 

lie  sat  absorbed  in  the  memory  of  this  passion,  and 
Evelyn  and  the  garden  were  perceived  in  glimpses  between 
scenes  of  youthful  exaltations  and  romantic  indiscretions, 
lie  remembered  how  he  had  threatened  to  throw  himself 
from  her  window  for  no  other  reason  except  the  desire  of 
romantic  action;  and  while  he  sat  absorbed  in  the  past, 
Evelyn  watched  him,  nervous  and  irritated,  striving  to  read 
in  his  face  how  much  of  the  burden  had  fallen  from  him, 
and  how  free  his  heart  might  be  to  accept  another  love 
story. 

As  he  sat  in  the  garden  under  the  calm  cedar  tree  he 
dreamed  of  a  reconciliation  with  Eliane.  He  even  specu- 
lated on  the  effect  that  the  score  of  his  opera  would  have 
upon  her  if  he  were  to  send  it — all  that  music  composed 
in  her  honour.  But  which  opera  ?  Not  "  Connla  and  the 
Fairy  Maiden,"  for  a  great  deal  of  it  was  crude,  thin,  ab- 
surd. No;  he  could  not  send  it.  But  he  might  send 
"  Crania."  Yes,  he  would  send  "  Grama  "  when  he  had 
finished  it.  To  arrive  suddenly  from  England,  to  cast 
himself  at  her  feet — that  might  move  her.  Then,  with  a 
sigh,  "  These  are  things  we  dream  of,"  he  thought,  "  but 
never  do.  Only  in  dreams  do  men  set  forth  in  quest  of  the 
ideal." 

He  looked  up,  Evelyn's  eyes  were  fixed  on  him,  and  he 
felt  like  Bran  returning  home  after  his  voyage  to  the  won- 
drous isles. 

They  saw  the  footman  coming  across  the  green  sward. 
He  had  come  to  tell  her  that  Mr.  Innes  was  waiting  for 
her.  She  was  taking  him  to  St.  Joseph's.  But  there  was 
not  room  in  the  victoria  for  three,  and  Ulick  would  have 
to  go  back  to  London  by  train. 

"  But  you  will  come  and  see  me  soon  ?  You  promised 
to  go  through  the  '  Isolde '  music  with  me.  Will  you  come 
to-morrow  ?  " 

Her  clear,  delightful  eyes  were  fixed  upon  him;  he  felt 
for  the  first  time  the  thrill  of  her  personality;  their  light 
caused  him  to  hesitate,  and  then  to  accept  her  invitation 
eagerly.  He  heard  her  remind  her  father  that  he  had  prom- 
ised to  come  to-night  to  hear  her  sing  Elizabeth.  He 
would  be  there  too.  lie  would  see  her  to-night  as  well, 


22G  EVELYN  INNES. 

and  ho  stood  watching  the  beautiful  horses  bearing  father 
and  daughter  swiftly  away.  The  shady  Dulwich  street  dozed 
under  a  bright  sky,  and  the  bloom  of  the  flowering  trees 
was  shedding  its  fine  dust.  He  thought  of  Palestrina  and 
Wagner,  and  a  delicious  little  breeze  sent  a  shower  of 
bloom  about  his  feet,  as  if  to  remind  him  of  the  pathos 
of  the  passing  illusion  of  which  we  are  a  part.  He  stood 
watching  the  carriage,  and  the  happiness  and  the  sorrow  of 
things  choked  him  when  he  turned  away. 

She  was  happy  with  her  father,  and  she  felt  that  ho 
loved  her  better  than  any  lover.  The  xmique  experience 
of  taking  him  to  St.  Joseph's  in  her  carriage,  and  the  event 
of  singing  to  him  that  night  at  Covent  Garden,  absorbed 
her,  and  she  dozed  in  her  happiness  like  a  beautiful  rose. 
Never  had  she  been  so  happy.  She  was  happier  than  she 
merited.  The  thought  passed  like  a  little  shadow,  and  a 
moment  after  all  was  brightness  again.  Her  father  was 
the  real  love  of  her  life;  the  rest  was  mere  excitement,  and 
she  wondered  why  she  sought  it;  it  only  made  her  un- 
happy. Monsignor  was  right.  .  .  .  But  she  did  not  wish 
to  think  of  him. 

On  the  steps  of  St.  Joseph's,  she  bade  her  father  good- 
bye, and  remained  looking  back  till  she  could  see  him  no 
more.  Then  she  settled  herself  comfortably  under  her 
parasol,  intent  on  the  enjoyment  of  their  reconciliation. 
The  two  days  she  had  spent  with  him  looked  back  upon 
her  like  a  dream  from  which  she  had  only  just  awakened. 
As  in  a  dream,  there  were  blurred  outlines  and  places  where 
the  line  seemed  to  have  so  faded  that  she  could  no  longer 
trace  it.  The  most  distinct  picture  was  when  she  stood, 
her  hand  affectionately  laid  on  his  shoulder,  singing  Ulick's 
music.  She  had  forgotten  the  music  and  Ulick  himself, 
but  her  father,  how  near  she  was  to  him  in  all  her  sympa- 
thies and  instincts!  Another  moment,  equally  distinct, 
was  when  she  had  looked  up  and  seen  him  in  the  choir  loft 
conducting  with  calm  skill. 

He  was  coming  to-night  to  hear  her  sing  Elizabeth; 
that  was  the  great  event,  for  without  his  approval  all  the 
newspapers  in  the  world  were  as  nothing,  at  least  to  her. 
She  hummed  a  little  to  herself  to  see  if  she  were  in  voice. 
To  convince  him  that  she  sang  as  well  as  mother  was  out 
of  the  question,  but  she  might  be  able  to  convince  him 


EVELYN  INNES.  227 

that  she  could  do  something  that  mother  could  not  have 
done.  It  was  strange  that  she  always  thought  of  mother  in 
connection  with  her  voice;  the  other  singers  did  not  seem 
to  matter;  they  might  sing  better  or  worse,  but  the  sense 
of  rivalry  was  not  so  intimate.  The  carriage  crossed  West- 
minster Bridge,  and  as  she  looked  down  the  swirling 
muddy  current,  her  mother's  face  seemed  to  appear  to  her. 
In  some  strange  way  her  mother  had  always  seemed  more 
real  than  her  father.  Her  father  lived  on  the  surface  of 
things,  in  this  life,  whereas  her  mother  seemed  independ- 
ent of  time  and  circumstance,  a  sort  of  principle,  an 
eternal  essence,  a  spirit  which  she  could  often  hear  speak- 
ing to  her  far  down  in  her  heart.  Since  she  had  seen  her 
mother's  portrait,  this  sensation  had  come  closer;  and 
Evelyn  drew  back  as  if  she  felt  the  breath  of  the  dead  on 
her  face,  as  if  a  dead  hand  had  been  laid  upon  hers.  The 
face  she  saw  was  grey,  shadowy,  unreal,  like  a  ghost;  the 
eyes  were  especially  distinct,  her  mother  seemed  aware  of 
her;  but  though  Evelyn  sought  for  it,  she  could  not  detect 
any  sign  of  disapproval  in  her  face.  She  looked  always  like 
a  grey  shadow;  she  moved  like  a  shadow.  Evelyn  was 
often  tempted  to  ask  her  mother  to  speak.  Her  prayer 
had  always  been  a  doubting,  hesitating  prayer,  perhaps 
that  was  why  it  had  not  been  granted.  But  now,  sitting 
in  her  carriage  in  a  busy  thoroughfare,  she  seemed  to  sec 
over  the  brink  of  life,  she  seemed  to  see  her  mother  in  a 
grey  land  lit  with  stars.  She  recalled  Ulick's  tales  of  evoca- 
tion, and  wondered  if  it  were  possible  to  communicate  with 
her  mother.  But  even  if  she  could  speak  with  her,  she 
thought  that  she  would  shrink  from  doing  so.  She  thought 
of  what  Ulick  had  said  regarding  the  gain  and  loss  of  soul, 
how  we  can  allow  our  soul  to  dwindle,  and  how  we  can  in- 
crease it  until  communion  with  the  invisible  world  is  pos- 
sible. She  felt  that  it  were  a  presumption  to  limit  life  to 
what  we  see,  and  Owen's  argument  that  ignorance  was  the 
cause  of  belief  in  ghosts  and  spirits  seemed  to  her  poor  in- 
deed. Man  would  not  have  entertained  such  beliefs  for 
thousands  of  years  if  they  had  been  wholly  false. 

Ulick  was  coming  to-morrow.  But  he  was  going  to  go 
through  Isolde's  music  with  her,  and  she  could  hardly  fail 
to  learn  something,  to  pick  up  a  hint  which  she  might  turn 
to  account.  .  .  .  Her  conduct  had  been  indiscreet;  she  had 


228  EVELYN  IXNES. 

encouraged  him  to  make  love  to  her.  But  in  this  case  it 
did  not  matter;  he  was  a  man  who  did  not  care  about 
women,  and  she  recalled  all  he  had  said  to  convince  herself 
on  this  point.  However  this  might  be,  the  idea  of  her 
falling  in  love  with  him  was  out  of  the  question.  A  sec- 
ond lover  stripped  a  woman  of  every  atom  of  self-esteem, 
and  she  glanced  into  her  soul,  convinced  that  she  was  sin- 
cere with  herself,  sure  or  almost  sure  that  what  she  had 
said  expressed  her  feelings  truthfully.  But  in  spite  of  her 
efforts  to  be  sincere,  there  was  a  corner  of  her  soul  into 
which  she  dared  not  look,  and  her  thoughts  drew  back 
as  if  they  feared  a  lurking  beast. 

Immediately  after,  she  remembered  that  she  had  vowed 
in  church  that  she  would  ask  Owen  to  marry  her.  Owen 
would  say  yes  at  once,  he  would  want  to  marry  her  at  tho 
end  of  the  week;  and  once  she  was  married,  she  would 
have  to  leave  the  stage.  She  would  not  be  able  to  play 
Isolde.  .  .  .  But  she  knew  the  part!  it  would  seem  silly  to 
give  up  the  stage  on  the  eve  of  her  appearance  in  the  part. 
It  would  be  such  a  disappointment  to  so  many  people.  All 
London  was  looking  forward  to  seeing  her  sing  Isolde.  Mr. 
Hermann  Goetze,  what  would  he  say?  He  would  be  en- 
titled to  compensation.  A  nice  sum  Owen  would  have  to 
pay  for  the  pleasure  of  marrying  her.  If  she  were  to  pay 
the  indemnity — could  she  ?  It  would  absorb  all  her  savings. 
More  than  all.  She  did  not  think  she  could  have  saved 
more  than  six  or  seven  thousand  pounds.  The  manager 
might  claim  twenty.  Her  thoughts  merged  into  vague 
calculations  regarding  the  value  of  her  jewellery.  .  .  .  Even 
Owen  would  not  care  to  pay  twenty  thousand  pound-  so 
that  he  might  marry  her  this  season  instead  of  next.  NYxt 
year  she  was  going  to  sing  Kundry!  Her  fare  tightened 
in  expression,  and  a  painful  languor  seemed  to  weaken  and 
ruin  all  her  tisues.  He  might "  ask  her  why  she  had  so 
suddenly  determined  to  accept  what  she  had  often  avoided, 
put  aside,  postponed.  She  would  have  to  give  some  reason. 
If  she  didn't,  he  would  suspect — what  would  he  suspect? 
That  she  was  in  love  with  Ulick? 

She  might  tell  Owen  that  she  wished  to  be  married  on 
account  of  scruples  of  conscience.  But  she  had  better  not 
speak  of  Monsignor.  Any  mention  of  a  priest  was  annoy- 
ing to  him.  In  that  respect  he  was  even  more  arbitrary, 


EVELYN  INNES.  229 

more  violent  than  ever.  But  a  sudden  desire  to  see  him 
arose  in  her,  and  she  told  the  coachman  to  drive  to  Berke- 
ley Square. 

The  trees  wore  their  first  verdure,  and  there  was  a 
melody  among  the  boughs,  and  she  took  pleasure  in  the 
graceful  female  figure  pouring  water  from  the  long-necked 
ewer.  She  lay  back  in  her  carriage,  imitating  the  lady  she 
had  seen  six  years  ago,  regretting  that  she  would  not  know 
her  if  she  were  to  meet  her ;  she  might  be  one  of  her  present 
friends. 

Owen's  house  had  been  freshly  painted  that  spring,  its 
balcony  was  full  of  flowers  chosen  by  herself,  and  arranged 
according  to  her  taste  .  .  .  and  a  pleasant  look  of  recog- 
nition lit  up  in  the  eyes  of  the  footmen  in  the  hall,  and  the 
butler,  whom  Evelyn  remembered  since  the  first  day  she 
came  to  Berkeley  Square,  was  sorry  indeed  that  Sir  Owen 
was  out.  But  he  was  sure  that  Sir  Owen  would  not  be 
long.  Would  she  wait  in  Sir  Owen's  room,  or  would  she 
like  lunch  to  be  served  at  once?  She  said  she  would  wait 
in  Sir  Owen's  room,  and  she  walked  across  the  hall,  smiling 
at  the  human  nature  of  the  servants'  admiration.  If  their 
master  had  a  mistress,  they  were  glad  that  he  had  one  they 
could  boast  about.  And  picking  up  two  songs  by  Schubert, 
and  hoping  she  was  in  good  voice,  she  sat  down  at  the 
piano  and  sang  them.  Then,  half  aware  that  she  was  sing- 
ing unusually  well,  she  sang  another.  The  third  song  she 
sang  so  beautifully  that  Owen  stood  on  the  threshold  loath 
to  interrupt  her,  and  when  she  got  up  from  the  piano  he 
said — 

"  Why  on  earth  don't  you  sing  like  that  on  the 
stage!" 

"  Ah,  if  one  only  could,"  she  said,  laughing,  and  taking 
him  by  the  hand,  she  led  him  to  the  sol'a  and  sat  beside  him 
as  if  for  a  long  talk. 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  I've  seen  him.    It's  all  right." 

"  I'm  so  glad.  I  hope  you  said  something  in  my  favour. 
I  don't  want  him  to  think  me  a  brute,  a  villainous  seducer, 
the  man  who  ruined  his  daughter?  " 

"  Xo,  there  was  nothing  of  that  kind." 

She  began  at  first  very  gravely,  but  her  natural  humour 
overcame  her,  and  she  made  him  laugh,  with  her  account  of 
her  wooing  of  her  father,  and  the  part  the  new  harpsichord 


230  EVELYN  INNKS. 

had  played  in  their  reconciliation  delighted  him.  He  was 
full  of  pleasant  comments,  gay  and  sympathetic;  he  was 
interested  in  her  account  of  Ulick,  and  said  he  would  like 
to  know  him.  This  pleased  her,  and  looking  into  Owen's 
eyes,  she  wondered  if  she  should  ask  him  to  marry  her. 
They  talked  of  their  friends,  of  the  performance  that  night 
at  the  opera,  and  Evelyn  thought  that  perhaps  Owen  ought 
not  to  go  there  lest  he  should  meet  her  father,  and  she  re- 
membered that  she  had  only  to  ask  him  to  marry  her  in 
order  to  make  it  quite  easy  for  him  to  meet  her  father. 
Every  moment  she  thought  she  was  going  to  ask  him; 
she  determined  to  introduce  the  subject  in  the  first  pause  in 
the  conversation,  but  when  the  pause  came  she  didn't  or 
couldn't;  her  tongue  did  not  seem  to  obey  her.  She  talked 
instead  things  that  did  not  interest  either  her  or  him — the 
general  principles  of  Wagner's  music,  or  some  technicality, 
whether  she  should  insist  on  the  shepherd's  song  being 
played  on  the  English  horn.  At  last  she  felt  that  she 
eould  not  continue,  so  fictitious  and  strained  did  the  con- 
versation seem  to  her. 

"  Are  you  going  already  ?  I've  not  seen  you  for  four 
days.  We  are  dining  to-morrow  at  Lady  Merrington's." 

Owen  hoped  that  she  would  sing  there  the  three  songs 
which  she  had  just  sung  so  well,  but  she  answered  instantly 
that  she  did  not  think  she  would,  that  she  wanted  to  sin^ 
Ulick's  songs.  She  knew  that  this  second  mention  of  Ulu-k's 
name  would  rouse  suspicion;  she  tried  to  keep  it  back,  but 
it  escaped  her  lips.  She  was  sorry,  for  she  did  not  think 
that  she  wished  to  annoy.  She  would  not  stop  to  luneh, 
though  she  could  not  urge  any  better  reason  than  that 
Lady  Duckle  was  waiting  for  her,  and  when  lie  wished  t» 
kiss  her,  she  turned  her  head  aside;  a  moody  look  collect.  .1 
in  her  eyes,  an  ugly  black  resentment  gathered  in  her  heart ; 
she  was  ashamed  of  herself,  for  there  was  nothing  to  war- 
rant her  being  so  disagreeable,  and  to  pass  the  matter  off, 
she  described  herself  as  being  aggressively  virtuous  that 
morning. 

On  her  singing  nights  she  dined  at  half-past  five,  and 
the  interval  after  dinner  she  spent  in  looking  through  her 
part,  humming  bits  of  it  to  herself,  but  to-day  Lady  Duckle 
was  qni.-k  to  remark  the  score  of  "  TannhaiHer "  in  her 
hand.  She  sat  with  it  on  her  knees,  looking  at  it  only  oc- 


EVELYN  INNES.  231 

casionally,  for  she  was  thinking  how  the  music  would  ap- 
peal to  her  father,  and  how  her  mother  would  have  sung  it. 
But  she  had  to  abandon  these  vain  speculations.  She  must 
play  the  part  as  she  felt  it,  to  tamper  with  her  conception 
would  be  to  court  failure.  To  please  herself  was  her  only 
chance  of  pleasing  her  father;  if  he  did  not  like  her  read- 
ing of  the  part,  if  her  singing  did  not  please  him,  it  was 
very  unfortunate,  but  could  not  be  helped.  And  when  tlu 
carriage  came  to  take  her  to  the  theatre,  she  was  not  sure 
that  she  would  not  be  glad  to  receive  a  telegram  saying 
that  he  was  prevented  from  coming.  She  was  very  nerv- 
ous while  dressing,  and  on  coming  downstairs  she  stood 
watching  the  stage-box  where  he  was  sitting.  She  could 
distinguish  his  handsome,  grave  face  through  the  shadows, 
and  the  orchestra  was  playing  that  rather  rhetorical  ad- 
dress to  the  halls  which  neither  she  nor  Ulick  cared  much 
about.  She  waited,  forgetful  of  her  entrance,  and  she  had 
to  hurry  round  to  the  back  of  the  stage. 

But  the  moment  the  curtain  went  up,  she  became  the 
mediaeval  German  princess;  her  other  life  fell  behind  her, 
and  her  father  was  but  a  little  shadow  on  her  brain.  Yet  he 
was  the  inspiration  of  her  acting,  and  that  night  the  whole 
theatre  consisted  for  Evelyn  of  one  stage-box.  Her  eyes 
never  wandered  there,  but  she  knew  that  there  sat  her  ulti- 
mate judge,  one  whom  no  excess  or  trick  could  deceive. 
He  would  not  judge  her  by  the  mere  superficial  appearance 
she  presented  on  the  stage,  by  the  superficial  qualities  of  her 
voice  or  her  acting;  he  would  see  to  the  origin  of  the  idea, 
whence  it  had  sprung,  and  how  it  had  been  developed.  He 
did  not  know  this  particular  opera,  but  he  knew  all  music, 
and  would  judge  it  and  her  not  according  to  the  capricious 
taste  of  the  moment,  but  in  its  relation  and  her  relation 
to  the  immutable  canons  of  art,  from  the  plain  chant  to 
Palestrina,  from  Palestrina  to  Bach  and  Beethoven.  Her 
singing  of  every  phrase  would  be  passed  as  it  were  through 
the  long  tradition  of  the  centuries;  it  would  not  be  ac- 
cepted as  an  isolated  fact,  it  would  be  judged  good,  indif- 
ferent or  bad,  by  learned  technical  comparison.  That  she 
was  his  datighter  would  weigh  not  a  hair's  weight  in  the 
scale,  and  the  knowledge  of  this  terrible  justice  raised  her 
out  of  herself,  detached  her  more  completely  from  the 
superficial  and  the  vulgar.  She  sang  and  acted  as  in  a 


232  EVELYN  INNES. 

dream,  hypnotised  by  her  audience,  her  exaltation  steeped 
in  somnambulism  and  steeped  in  ecstasy. 

The  curtain  was  raised  several  times,  but  that  night 
the  only  applause  or  censure  she  was  minded  to  hear 
awaited  her  in  her  dressing-room.  She  sent  her  maid  out 
of  the  room,  and  waited  for  some  sound  of  footsteps  in 
the  corridor,  and  at  the  first  sound  she  rushed  to  the  door 
and  flung  it  open.  It  was  her  father,  Merat  was  bringing 
him  along  the  corridor,  and  they  stood  looking  at  each 
other;  her  clear,  nervous  eyes  were  trembling  with  emo- 
tion. His  face  seemed  to  tell  her  that  he  was  pleased;  she 
read  upon  it  the  calm  exaltation  of  art,  yet  she  could  not 
however  summon  sufficient  courage  to  ask  him,  and  they  sat 
down  side  by  side.  At  last  she  said — 

"Why  don't  you  speak?  Aren't  you  satisfied?  \\'as 
I  so  bad?" 

"  You  are  a  great  artist,  Evelyn.  I  wish  your  mother 
were  here  to  hear  you." 

"  Is  that  really  true  ?  Say  it  again,  father.  You  are 
satisfied  with  me.  Then  I  have  succeeded." 

He  told  her  why  she  had  sung  well,  and  he  knew  so 
well.  It  was  like  walking  with  a  man  with  a  lantern; 
when  he  raised  the  light,  she  could  see  a  little  further  into 
the  darkness.  But  she  had  still  the  prayer  to  sing  to  him. 
She  wanted  to  know  what  he  would  think  of  her  singing 
of  the  prayer.  The  voice  of  the  call-boy  interrupted  them. 
She  sang  it  more  purely  than  ever,  and  the  flutes  :m<l 
clarionettes  led  her  up  a  shining  road,  arid  when  six-  walked 
up  the  stage  she  seemed  to  disappear  amid  the  palpitation 
of  the  stare. 

Her  father  was  waiting  for  her,  and  on  their  way  to 
the  station  she  could  see  that  he  was  altsorhed  in  her  art  of 
singing.  His  remarks  were  occasional  and  disparate,  but 
she  guessed  his  train  of  thought,  supplying  easily  the  miss- 
ing links.  His  praise  was  all  inferential,  and  this  made  it 
more  delicate  and  delicious.  On  bidding  him  good-night, 
he  asked  her  to  come  to  choir  practice.  She  would  have 
liked  to,  but  her  accompanist  was  coming  at  half-past  ten. 

There  were  few  days  when  she  was  not  singing  at  night 
that  she  dispensed  with  her  morning's  work.  She  consid- 
ered herself  like  a  gymnast,  bound  to  go  through  her  feats 
in  private,  so  as  to  assure  herself  of  her  power  of  being 


EVELYN  INNES.  233 

able  to  go  through  them  in  public.  Even  when  she  knew 
a  part,  she  did  not  like  to  sing  it  many  times  without  study- 
ing it  afresh.  She  believed  that  once  a  week  was  as  often 
as  it  was  possible  to  give  a  Wagner  opera,  and  even  then 
an  occasional  rehearsal  was  indispensable  if  the  first  high 
level  of  excellence  was  to  be  maintained. 

With  her  morning's  work  she  allowed  no  one  to  inter- 
fere. Owen  was  often  sent  away,  or  retained  for  such  a 
time  as  his  criticism  might  be  of  use.  But  to-day  she  was 
expecting  Ulick;  he  had  promised  to  go  through  the  music 
with  her;  so  when  Herat  came  to  tell  her  that  the  pianist 
had  arrived,  she  hesitated,  uncertain  whether  she  should 
send  him  away.  But  after  a  moment's  reflection  she  de- 
cided not  to  forego  her  serious  study  of  the  part.  She  only 
wished  to  talk  to  Ulick  about  the  music,  to  sing  bits  of  it 
here  and  there,  to  question  him  regarding  certain  readings, 
to  get  at  his  ideas  concerning  it.  All  that  was  very  inter- 
esting and  very  valuable  in  a  way,  but  it  was  not  hard 
work,  and  she  felt,  moreover,  that  hard  work  was  just  what 
she  wanted  before  the  rehearsals  of  "  Tristan  "  began ;  there 
were  certain  passages  where  she  was  not  sure  of  herself. 
She  thought  of  the  cry  Isolde  utters  in  the  third  act  when 
Tristan  falls  dead.  The  orchestra  comes  in  then  in  a  way 
very  perplexing  for  the  singer,  and  she  had  not  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  satisfying  herself  with  those  few  bars. 

"  Tell  the  young  man  that  I  shall  be  with  him  in  half 
an  hour." 

And  when  she  had  had  her  bath  and  her  hair  was 
dressed,  she  tied  a  few  petticoats  round  her  waist  and 
slipped  on  a  morning  wrapper;  that  was  enough;  she  paid 
no  heed  to  her  accompanist,  treating  him  as  if  he  were  her 
hairdresser.  She  sang  sitting  close  to  his  elbow,  her  arm 
familiarly  laid  011  the  back  of  his  chair,  a  little  grey  woollen 
shawl  round  her  shoulders.  In  the  passages  requiring  the 
whole  of  her  voice,  she  got  up  and  sang  them  right  through, 
as  if  she  were  on  the  stage,  listened  to  by  five  thousand 
people.  Owen,  accustomed  as  he  was  to  her  voice,  some- 
times couldn't  help  wondering  at  the  power  of  it;  the  vol- 
ume of  sound  issuing  from  her  throat  drowned  the  piano, 
threatening  to  break  its  strings.  Her  ear  was  so  fine  that 
it  detected  any  slightest  tampering  with  the  text.  "You 
have  given  me  a  false  chord,"  she  would  say;  and  sure 


234  EVELYN  INNES. 

enough,  the  pianist's  fingers  had  accidentally  softened 
some  harshness.  Sometimes  he  ventured  a  slight  criticism. 
"  You  should  hold  the  note  a  little  longer."  Then  she 
would  sing  the  passage  again. 

After  singing  for  about  two  hours  she  had  lunch.  That 
day  she  was  lunching  with  Lady  Ascott,  and  did  not  get 
away  until  after  three  o'clock.  Owen  came  to  fetch  her, 
and  they  went  away  to  see  pictures.  But  more  present 
than  the  pictures  were  Ulick's  dark  eyes,  and  Owen  noticed 
the  shadow  passing  constantly  behind  her  eyes.  Twice  she 
asked  him  what  the  time  was,  and  she  told  him  she  would 
have  to  go  soon. 

At  last  she  said,  "  Now  I  must  say  good-bye." 

She  could  see  he  was  troubled,  and  that  she  grieved  him, 
and  at  one  moment  it  was  uncertain  whether  she  would 
not  renounce  her  visit  and  send  Ulick  a  telegram.  But 
she  remembered  that  he  had  probably  seen  her  father,  and 
would  be  able  to  tell  her  more  of  what  her  father  thought 
of  her  Elizabeth.  It  was  that  feeble  excuse  that  sufficed 
to  decide  her  conduct  and  she  bade  him  good-bye. 

Standing  on  the  threshold  of  her  drawing-room,  Evelyn 
admired  its  symmetry  and  beauty.  The  wall  paper,  a 
delicate  harmony  in  pale  brown  and  pink  roses,  soothed  the 
eye;  the  design  was  a  lattice,  through  which  the  flowers 
grew.  An  oval  mirror  hung  lengthwise  above  the  whiN; 
marble  chimney  piece,  and  the  Louis  XV  clock  was  ;i 
charming  composition  of  two  figures.  A  Muse  in  a  simple 
attitude  leaned  a  little  to  the  left  in  order  to  strike  the  lyre 
placed  above  the  dial;  on  the  other  side,  a  Cupid  lislmrd 
attentive  for  the  sound  of  the  hour,  presumably  his  hour. 
There  was  a  little  lyrical  inevitableness  in  the  lines  of  this 
clock,  and  Owen  could  not  come  into  the  room  without 
admiring  it.  On  the  chimney  piece  there  were  two  bowls 
filled  with  violets,  and  the  flowers  partly  hid  the  beautiful 
Worcester  blue  and  the  golden  pheasants.  And  on  either 
side  of  the  clock  were  two  Chelsea  groups,  factitious  bowers 
made  out  of  dark  green  shell-like  leaves,  in  which  were 
seated  a  lady  in  a  flowered  silk  and  a  bcribboned  shepherd 
playing  a  flute. 

They  had  spent  long  mornings  seeking  a  real  Sheraton 
sofa,  with  six  or  eight  chairs  to  mal«'li.  For  a  long  time 
they  were  unfortunate,  but  they  had  happened  upon  two 


EVELYN  INNES.  235 

sofas,  certainly  of  the  period,  probably  made  by  Sheraton 
himself.  A  hundred  and  twenty  years  had  given  a  beauti- 
ful lustre  to  the  satin-wood  and  to  the  painted  garlands 
of  flowers,  and  the  woven  cane  had  attained  a  rich  brown 
and  gold;  and  the  chairs  that  went  with  the  sofa  were 
works  of  art,  so  happy  were  the  proportions  of  their  thin 
legs  and  backs,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  backs  the  circle  of 
harmonious  cane  was  in  exquisite  proportion. 

For  a  long  while  the  question  for  immediate  decision 
had  become  what  carpet  should  be  there.  Evelyn  had  hap- 
pened upon  an  old  Aubusson  carpet,  a  little  threadbare, 
but  the  dealer  had  assured  her  that  it  could  be  made  as 
good  as  new,  and  she  had  telegraphed  to  Owen  to  go  to 
see  its  pale  roses  and  purple  architecture.  He  had  writ- 
ten to  her  that  its  harmony  was  as  florid,  and  yet  as  clas- 
sical as  an  aria  by  Mozart.  He  was  still  more  pleased 
when  he  saw  it  down,  and  he  had  spent  hours  thinking  of 
what  pictures  would  suit  it,  would  carry  on  its  colour  and 
design.  The  Boucher  drawing  which  he  had  bought  at 
Christie's  had  seemed  to  him  the  very  thing.  He  had 
brought  it  home  in  a  cab. 

She  was  proud  of  her  room,  but  she  was  doubtful  if  it 
would  please  Ulick,  and  was  curious  to  hear  what  he  would 
think  of  it.  She  remembered  that  Owen  had  said  that  such 
exquisite  exteriorities  were  only  possible  in  a  pagan  cen- 
tury, when  man  is  content  to  look  no  further  than  this 
strip  of  existence  for  the  reason  of  his  existence  and  his 
birthright.  And  while  waiting  for  Ulick  she  wondered 
what  his  rooms  were  like,  and  if  she  would  ever  go  there. 
She  expected  him  about  five,  and  she  sat  waiting  for  him 
by  her  tea-table  amid  the  eighteenth  century  furniture,  a 
little  to  the  right  of  the  Boucher. 

She  watched  him  as  he  came  towards  her,  expecting 
and  hoping  to  see  him  cast  a  quick  glance  at  the  picture. 
He  shook  hands  with  her  vaguely,  and  sat  down  on  a 
Sheraton  chair  and  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  Aubusson  carpet. 
She  thought  for  some  time  that  he  was  examining  it,  but 
at  last  the  truth  dawned;  he  did  not  see  it  at  all,  he  was 
maybe  a  thousand  years  away,  lost  in  some  legendary  past. 
Had  she  not  seen  him  before  pass  from  such  remote  mood 
and  become  suddenly  animated  and  gay,  she  would  have 
despaired  of  any  pleasure  in  his  visit.  Above  everything 


23G  EVELYN  INNES. 

else  she  was  minded  to  ask  him  if  he  had  seen  her  father, 
and  if  her  father  had  spoken  to  him  about  her  Elizabeth. 
But  shyness  prevented  her,  and  she  spoke  to  him  about 
ordinary  things,  and  he  answered  her  questions  perfuncto- 
rily, and  without  any  apparent  reason  he  got  up  and  walked 
about  the  room;  but  not  looking  at  any  object,  he  walked 
about,  with  hanging  head,  absorbed  in  thought.  "  If  he 
won't  look  at  me  he  might  look  at  my  room,  I'm  sure  that 
is  pretty  enough,"  and  she  sat  watching  him  with  smiling 
eyes.  When  she  asked  him  what  he  thought  of  the  Bou- 
cher, he  said  that  no  doubt  it  was  very  graceful,  but  that 
the  only  art  he  took  interest  in,  except  Michael  Angolo 
and  Leonardo  da  Vinci  and  some  German  Primitives,  was 
Blake.  Then  he  seemed  to  forget  all  about  her,  and  she 
had  begun  to  think  his  manner  more  than  usually  uncon- 
ventional, and,  having  made  all  the  ordinary  remarks  she 
could  think  of,  she  asked  him  suddenly  if  he  had  seen  her 
father,  and  if  he  had  said  anything  to  him  about  her 
Elizabeth. 

"  I  went  to  Dulwich  on  purpose  to  hear." 

She  blushed,  and  was  very  happy.  It  was  delicious  to 
hear  that  he  was  sufficiently  interested  in  her  to  g<>  t<. 
Dulwich  on  purpose  to  inquire  her  father's  opinion  of  her 
Elizabeth. 

"  I  wonder  if  he  will  like  my  Isolde  as  well." 

He  did  not  answer,  and  his  silence  filled  her  with  in- 
quietude. 

"  I  have  been  thinking  over  what  you  said  regarding 
your  conception  of  the  part." 

She  waited  for  him  to  tell  her  what  conclusion  he  had 
come  to,  but  he  said  nothing.  At  last  he  got  up,  and  she 
followed  him  to  the  piano.  When  she  came  to  the  passage 
where  Isolde  tells  Brangiine  that  she  intended  to  kill  Tris- 
tan, he  stopped. 

"But  she  is  violent;  hear  these  chords,  how  aggressive 
they  are.  The  music  is  against  you.  Listen  to  these 
chords." 

"  I  know  those  chords  well  enough.  You  don't  suppose 
I  am  listening  to  them  for  the  first  time.  I  admit  that 
there  are  a  few  places  whore  she  is  distinctly  violent.  The 
curse  must  be  given  violently,  but  I  think  it  is  possible  to 
make  it  felt  that  her  violence  is  a  sexual  violence,  a  sort  of 


EVELYN  INNES.  237 

wish  to  go  mad.  I  can't  explain.  Can't  you  under- 
stand ? " 

"  Yes,  I  think  I  do ;  you  want  to  sing  the  first  part  of 
the  act  languidly.  There  is  more  in  the  music  which  sup- 
ports your  reading  than  I  thought.  In  the  passage  where 
Isolde  says  to  Brangane,  but  really  to  herself,  '  To  die 
without  having  been  loved  by  that  man ! '  the  love  motive 
appears  here  for  the  first  time,  but  more  drawn  out,  broader 
than  elsewhere." 

She  declared  that  Wagner  had  emphasised  his  meaning 
in  this  passage  as  if  he  had  anticipated  all  the  misreadings 
of  the  first  act,  and  was  striving  to  guard  himself  against 
them.  She  grew  excited  in  the  discussion.  She  had  mere- 
ly followed  her  instinct,  but  she  was  glad  that  Ulick  had 
challenged  her  reading,  for  as  they  examined  the  music 
clause  by  clause,  they  found  still  further  warrant  for  her 
conception. 

"  Ah,  the  old  man  knew  what  he  was  doing,"  she  said ; 
"  he  had  marked  this  passage  to  be  sung  gloomily,  and  by 
gloomily  he  meant  infinite  lassitude."  But  this  intention 
had  not  been  grasped,  and  the  singers  had  either  sung  it 
without  any  particular  expression,  or  with  a  stupid  stage 
expression  which  meant  if  possible  something  less  than 
nothing.  "  Then,  you  see,  if  I  sing  the  first  half  of  the 
first  act  as  wearily  as  the  music  allows  me,  I  shall  get  a 
contrast — an  Isolde  who  has  not  drunk  the  love  potion. 
The  love  potion  is  of  course  only  a  symbol  of  her  surren- 
der to  her  desire." 

Ulick  would  have  liked  to  have  gone  through  the  whole 
of  the  music  of  the  act  with  her.  It  was  only  in  this  way 
that  he  could  get  an  idea  of  how  her  reading  would  work 
out.  But  in  that  moment  each  read  in  the  other's  eyes 
an  avowal  of  which  they  were  immediately  ashamed,  and 
which  they  tried  to  dissimulate. 

"  I  am  tired.  We  won't  have  any  more  music  this 
evening." 

His  thoughts  seemed  to  pass  suddenly  from  her,  and 
then,  without  her  being  aware  how  it  began,  she  found 
herself  listening  intently  to  him.  He  was  talking  in  that 
strange,  rhythmical  chant  of  his  about  the  primal  melan- 
choly of  man,  and  his  remote  past  always  insurgent  in 
him.  Although  she  did  not  quite  understand,  perhaps  be- 


238  EVELYN  INNES. 

cause  she  did  not  quite  understand,  she  was  carried  away 
far  out  of  all  reason,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  could 
listen  for  ever.  Nor  could  she  clearly  see  out  of  her  eyes, 
and  she  felt  all  power  of  resistance  dissolve  within  her. 
He  might  have  taken  her  in  his  arms  and  kissed  her  then; 
but  though  sitting  by  her,  he  seemed  a  thousand  miles 
away;  his  remoteness  chastened  her,  and  she  asked  him  of 
what  he  was  thinking. 

"  When  your  father  used  to  speak  of  you,  I  used  to  see 
you;  sometimes  I  used  to  fancy  I  heard  you.  I  did  hear 
you  once  sing  in  a  dream." 

"  What  was  I  singing  ?     Wagner  ?  " 

"  No ;  something  quite  different.  I  forgot  it  all  as  I 
awoke  except  the  last  notes.  I  seemed  to  have  returned 
from  the  future — you  seemed  in  the  end  to  lose  your  voice. 
...  I  cannot  tell  you — I  forget." 

"  It  is  very  sad ;  how  sad  such  feelings  are !  " 

"  But  I  never  doubted  that  I  should  meet  you,  that  our 
destinies  were  knit  together — for  a  time  at  least.'* 

She  wanted  to  ask  him  by  what  signs  do  we  recognise 
the  moment  that  we  are  destined  to  meet  the  one  that  is 
more  important  to  us  than  all  the  world.  But  she  could 
find  no  way  of  asking  this  question  that  would  not  bet  ray 
her.  She  could  not  put  it  so  that  Ulick  would  fail  to 
read  some  application  of  the  question  to  herself,  and  to 
himself.  So  it  seemed  strange  indeed  that  he  should,  as 
if  in  answer  to  her  unexpressed  thought,  say  that  tho  in- 
stinct of  man  is  to  consult  the  stars.  She  remembered  the 
evenings  when  she  used  to  go  into  the  patch  of  black 
garden  and  gaze  at  the  stars  till  her  brain  reeled.  She 
used  even  to  gather  the  daffodils  and  place  them  on  the 
wall  in  homage  to  the  star  which  she  felt  to  be  hers.  She 
could  not  refrain  from  this  idolatrous  act;  but  in  her  bed 
at  night,  thinking  of  the  flowers  and  the  star,  she  had  be- 
lieved herself  mad  or  very  wicked;  for  nothing  in  the 
world  would  she  have  had  anyone  know  her  folly,  and  she 
remembered  the  agony  it  had  been  to  her  to  confess  it. 
But  now  she  heard  that  she  had  been  acting  according  to 
the  sense  of  the  wisdom  of  generations.  As  he  had  said, 
"  according  to  the  immortal  atavism  of  man." 

With  her  ordinary  work-a-dny  intelligence,  she  felt  that 
the  stars  could  not  possibly  be  concerned  in  our  miserable 


EVELYN  INNES.  239 

existence.  But  deep  down  in  her  being  someone  who  was 
nut  herself,  but  who  seemed  inseparable  from  her,  and 
over  whom  she  had  no  slightest  control,  seemed  to  breathe 
throughout  her  entire  being  an  affirmation  of  her  celes- 
tial dependency.  She  could  catch  no  words,  merely  a 
vague,  immaterial  destiny  like  distant  music;  and  her 
ears  filled  with  the  wailing  certitude  of  an  inseverable 
affinity  with  the  stars,  and  she  longed  to  put  off  this  shame- 
ful garb  of  flesh  and  rise  to  her  spiritual  destiny  of  which 
the  stars  are  our  watchful  guardians.  It  was  like  deep 
music;  words  could  not  contain  it,  it  was  a  deep  and  in- 
distinct yearning  for  the  stars — for  spiritual  existence. 
She  was  conscious  of  the  narrowness  of  the  prison-house 
into  which  Owen  had  shut  her,  and  looking  at  Ulick,  she 
felt  the  thrill  of  liberation ;  it  was  like  a  ray  of  light  divid- 
ing the  dark.  Looking  at  Ulick,  she  was  startled  by  the 
conviction  of  his  indispensability  in  her  life,  and  the  knowl- 
edge that  she  must  repel  him  was  an  acute  affliction,  a 
desolate  despair.  It  seemed  cruel  and  disastrous  that  she 
might  not  love  him,  for  it  was  only  through  love  that  she 
could  get  to  understand  him,  and  life  without  knowledge 
of  him  seemed  failure. 

"  I'm  very  fond  of  you,  Ulick,  but  I  mustn't  let  you 
kiss  me.  Can't  we  be  friends  ?  " 

He  sat  leaning  a  little  forward,  his  head  bent  and  his 
eyes  on  the  carpet.  He  represented  to  her  an  abysmal 
sorrow — an  extraordinary  despair.  She  longed  to  share 
this  sorrow,  to  throw  her  arms  about  him  and  make  him 
glad.  Their  love  seemed  so  good  and  natural,  she  was 
surprised  that  she  might  not. 

"  Ulick." 

"  Yes,  Evelyn." 

He  looked  round  the  room,  saw  it  was  getting  late,  and 
that  it  was  time  for  him  to  go. 

"  Yes,  it  is  getting  late.  I  suppose  you  must  go.  But 
you'll  come  to  see  me  again.  We  shall  be  friends,  promise 
me  that  .  .  .  that  whatever  happens  we  shall  be  friends." 

"  I  think  that  we  shall  always  be  friends,  I  feel  that." 

His  answer  seemed  to  her  insufficient,  and  they  stood 
looking  at  each  other.     When  the  door  closed  after  him, 
Evelyn  turned  away,  thinking  that  if  he  had  stayed  another 
moment  she  must  have  thrown  herself  into  his  arms. 
16 


240  EVELYN  INNES. 


XX. 

"  DREAMS  "  was  the  first  of  the  five,  but  the  music  that 
haunted  belonged  to  the  third  song.  She  could  not  quite 
remember  a  single  phrase,  nor  any  word  except  "  pining 
flowers."  She  had  thought  of  sending  for  it,  but  such 
vague  memory  suited  her  mood  better  than  an  exact  text. 
If  she  had  the  song  she  would  go  to  the  piano,  and  she  did 
not  wish  to  move  from  the  Sheraton  sofa,  made  comfortable 
with  pale  blue  cushions.  But  again  the  music  stirred  her 
memory  like  wind  the  tall  grasses,  and  out  of  the  slowly- 
moving  harmonies  there  arose  an  invocation  of  the  strange 
pathos  of  existence;  no  plaint  for  an  accidental  sorrow, 
something  that  happened  to  you  or  me,  or  might  have  hap- 
pened, if  our  circumstances  had  been  different;  only  the 
mood  of  desolate  self -consciousness  in  which  the  soul  slowly 
contemplates  the  disaster  of  existence.  The  melancholy 
that  the  music  exhales  is  no  querulous  feminine  plaint,  but 
an  immemorial  melancholy,  an  exalted  resignation.  The 
music  goes  out  like  a  fume,  dying  in  remote  chords,  and 
Evelyn  sat  absorbed,  viewing  the  world  from  afar,  like  the 
Lady  of  Shallott,  seeing  in  the  mirror  of  memory  the 
chestnut  trees  of  the  Dulwich  street,  and  a  little  girl  run- 
ning after  her  hoop;  and  then  her  mother's  singing  classes, 
and  the  expectation  she  had  lived  in  of  learning  to  sing, 
and  being  brought  upon  the  stage  by  her  mother.  If  her 
mother  had  lived,  she  would  have  been  singing  "  Romeo  and 
Juliet "  and  "  Lucia."  .  .  .  Her  father  would  have  deemed 
her  voice  wasted;  but  mother  always  had  had  her  way 
with  father.  Then  she  saw  herself  pining  for  Owen,  sick 
of  love,  longing,  hungry,  weak,  weary,  disappointed,  hope- 
less. Her  thoughts  turned  from  that  past,  and  her  moth- 
er's face  looked  out  of  her  reverie,  grey  and  grave  and 
watchful,  only  half  seen  in  the  shadows.  She  seemed 
aware  of  her  mother  as  she  might  be  of  some  idea,  strangely 
personal  to  herself,  something  near  and  remote,  beyond  this 
span  of  life,  stretching  into  infinity.  She  seemed  to  feel 
herself  lifted  a  little  above  the  verge  of  life,  so  that  she 
might  inquire  the  truth  from  her  mother;  but  something 
seemed  to  hold  her  back,  and  she  did  not  dare  to  hear  the 


EVELYN  INNES.  241 

supernatural  truth.  She  was  still  too  thrall  to  this  life  of 
lies,  but  she  could  not  but  see  her  mother's  face,  and  what 
surprised  her  was  that  this  grey  shadow  was  more  real  to 
her  than  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  face  did  not  stir,  it 
always  wore  the  same  expression.  Evelyn  could  not  even 
tell  if  the  expression  of  the  dim  eyes  was  one  of  disapproval. 
But  it  needs  must  be — she  could  have  no  doubt  on  that 
point.  What  was  certain  and  sure  was  that  she  seemed  in 
a  nearer  and  more  intimate,  in  a  more  essential  communi- 
cation with  her  mother,  than  with  her  father  who  was 
alive.  Nothing  seemed  to  divide  her  from  her  mother; 
she  had  only  to  let  her  soul  go,  and  it  could  mingle  with  her 
mother's  spirit,  and  then  all  misunderstandings  would  be 
at  an  end. 

She  was  tempted  to  free  herself  from  this  fettering 
life,  where  all  is  limitation  and  division.  She  had  loved 
Owen,  and  sung  a  few  operas,  that  was  all.  She  remem- 
bered that  everything  was  passing;  the  notes  she  sang  ex- 
isted only  while  she  sang  them,  each  was  a  little  past.  A 
moment  approaches;  it  is  ours,  and  no  sooner  is  it  ours 
than  it  has  slipped  behind  us,  even  in  the  space  of  the  in- 
drawing  of  a  breath.  No  wonder,  then,  that  men  had  come 
to  seek  reality  beyond  this  life;  it  was  natural  to  believe 
that  this  life  must  be  the  shadow  of  another  life  lying  be- 
yond it,  and  she  leaned  forward,  pale  and  nervous,  in  the 
pale  grace  of  the  Sheraton  sofa. 

Her  depression  that  morning  was  itself  a  mystery. 
What  did  it  mean?  Whence  did  it  proceed?  She  had  not 
lost  her  voice.  Owen  did  not  love  her  less.  Ulick  was 
coming  to  see  her;  but  within  her  was  an  unendurable 
anxiety.  It  proceeded  from  nothing  without;  it  was  her 
own  mind  that  frightened  her.  But  just  now  she  had  been 
exalted  and  happy  in  the  memory  of  that  deeply  emotional 
music.  She  tried  to  remember  the  exact  moment  when 
this  strange,  penetrating  sorrow  had  fallen  upon  her. 
Whence  had  it  come,  and  what  did  it  mean?  A  few  min- 
utes ago  it  was  not  with  her.  She  knew  that  it  would  not 
always  be  with  her,  yet  it  did  not  seem  as  i£  it  would  ever 
leave  her.  She  could  not  think  of  herself  as  ever  being 
happy  again.  But  Ulick  would  distract  this  misery  from 
her  brain.  She  would  send  him  to  the  piano,  and  the  ex- 
alted sorrow  in  the  music,  which  she  could  but  faintly  re- 


242  EVELYN  INNES. 

member,  would  raise  her  above  sorrow,  would  bear  her  out 
of  and  above  the  circle  of  personal  despondency.  Ulick 
might  help  her;  she  could  not  help  herself.  She  was  in- 
capable of  going  to  the  piano,  though  she  was  fully  con- 
scious that  her  mood  would  pass  away  in  music.  She 
walked  across  the  room,  her  eyes  contracting  with  suffering, 
and  she  stretched  herself  like  one  who  would  rid  herself  of 
a  burden. 

She  felt  as  if  she  could  resign  with  a  little  smile  the 
part  that  she  had  to  play  in  life.  Not  the  past,  that  was 
no  longer  hers  either  to  preserve  or  to  blot  out;  she  could 
not  wish  herself  different  from  what  she  had  been;  but  the 
future — was  that  to  be  the  same  as  the  past?  Then,  with 
an  apparent  contradiction  to  what  she  had  been  thinking  a 
few  moments  before  regarding  the  worthlessness  of  life,  she 
began  to  think  that  her  unhappiness  was  possibly  the  result 
of  her  eccentric  life.  She  had  lived  in  defiance  of  rules, 
governed  by  individual  caprice.  Apparently  it  had  suc- 
ceeded, but  only  apparently.  Underneath  the  surface  of 
her  life  she  had  always  been  unhappy.  All  her  talent,  all 
her  intelligence  had  not  been  able  to  save  her.  And  Owen  ? 
All  that  pride  of  intelligence  had  resulted  in  unhappiness 
in  his  case  as  in  hers.  Both  had  disobeyed  the  law  which 
we  feel  to  be  right  when  we  look  into  the  very  recesses  of 
our  soul,  and  that  these  laws  seem  foolish  and  illogical 
when  criticised  by  the  light  of  reason  does  not  prove  their 
untruth.  There  is  something  beyond  reason,  and  to  be- 
come concentric,  to  enter  into  the  conventions,  seemed  to 
her  in  a  vague  a,nd  distant  manner  to  be  indispensable. 
She  was  weary  of  living  in  the  inhospitable  regions  out- 
side of  prejudice  and  authority.  .  .  .  She  felt  that  it  was 
prejudice  and  authority  that  gave  a  meaning,  or  a  sufficient 
semblance  of  a  meaning,  to  life  as  it  was;  she  was  a  help- 
less atom  tossed  hither  and  thither  by  every  gust  of  pas- 
sion as  a  leaf  in  a  whirlwind,  and  she  longed  to  under- 
stand herself  and  her  mission  in  life. 

In  her  present  attitude  towards  life,  nothing  mattered 
except  the  present  reality,  the  satisfaction  of  the  moment; 
her  present  conception  of  life  only  counselled  sacrifice  of 
personal  desires  for  the  sake  of  larger  desires.  But  these 
larger  satisfactions  did  not  differ  in  kind  from  the  lesser, 
and  all  went  the  same  way,  the  pleasure  we  take  in  a  bunch 


EVELYN  INNES.  243 

of  violets,  or  that  which  a  love  story  brings,  and  both  pass, 
but  one  leaves  neither  remorse  nor  bitterness  behind.  A 
thought  told  her  that  she  was,  while  in  the  midst  of  these 
moral  reflections,  preparing  herself  to  be  Ulick's  mistress. 
She  denied  the  thought  and  put  it  behind  her  angrily,  at- 
tributing its  intrusion  to  her  nerves,  and  to  separate  herself 
from  it  she  allowed  thoughts  on  the  mutability  of  things  to 
again  exclusively  occupy  her.  If  she  were  to  get  up 
from  the  sofa  she  would  create  another  division  in  her  life, 
and  to-morrow  she  would  not  remember  her  mood  of  to- 
day; it  would  have  vanished  as  if  it  had  never  been.  She 
asked,  What  do  we  live  for?  and  rose  nervously  from  the 
sofa,  and  then  stood  still.  That  half-hour  was  now 
behind  her;  again  her  place  in  life  had  been  shifted. 
Yesterday,  too,  was  gone,  and  with  it  the  pleasure  of 
her  walk  with  Ulick.  She  had  walked  with  him  yester- 
day in  the  Green  Park,  in  the  still  crystal  evening.  She 
could  almost  see  the  two  figures,  she  could  see  them  at 
one  spot,  but  if  she  looked  too  long  they  disappeared  from 
her  eyes.  She  remembered  nothing  of  what  they  had  said, 
only  that  the  colour  of  the  evening  was  pale  blue,  with  a 
little  east  wind  in  it,  and  that  was  yesterday!  They  had 
talked  and  walked,  and  been  tremulously  interested  in 
each  other;  but  she  remembered  nothing  that  had  been  Said 
until  they  turned  to  go  home.  Then  arose  an  exact  vision 
of  herself  and  Ulick  walking  under  the  graceful  trees  which 
overhung  the  Piccadilly  railings.  There  the  park  had  been 
shaped  into  little  dells,  and  it  had  reminded  her  of  the  pic- 
ture in  the  Dulwich  Gallery.  There  his  pleading  was  more 
passionate.  He  had  begged  her  to  go  away  with  him,  and 
she  had  had  to  answer  that  she  could  not  give  Owen  up. 
She  had  felt  that  it  was  better  to  speak  frankly,  though  she 
was  sorry  to  have  to  say  things  that  would  give  him  pain. 
She  had  told  him  the  truth,  and  was  glad  she  had  done  so, 
but  she  liked  him  very  much,  and  had  said  it  was  a  pity 
they  had  not  met  earlier.  "  I  missed  you  by  about  a  year," 
he  answered.  His  words  came  back  to  her,  and  she  won- 
dered if  there  was  a  cause  for  the  accident,  and  if  it  could 
have  been  predicted.  They  had  walked  slowly  up  the  path- 
ways, and  seeing  the  young  summer  in  the  sky  and  trees, 
they  had  walked  as  upon  air,  borne  up  by  the  sadness  of 
finding  themselves  divided.  They  had  thought  of  what 


244:  EVELYN  INNES. 

forms  and  colours  their  lives  would  have  taken  if  she  had 
waited  a  few  months,  if  she  had  not  gone  away  with  Owen ; 
or,  better  still,  if  she  had  never  met  Owen.  She  was  con- 
scious that  such  thoughts  amounted  to  an  infidelity,  and 
she  knew  that  she  did  love  Ulick  as  she  loved  Owen.  But 
the  temptation  was  cruelly  intense,  and  she  could  not 
wrench  herself  out  of  its  grip.  Their  voices  had  fallen, 
they  suffocated  in  the  silence.  Ulick  had  mentioned 
Blake's  name,  and  she  had  accepted  an  artistic  discussion 
as  an  escapement,  but  their  hearts  were  overloaded,  and  it 
was  in  answer  to  his  own  thoughts  that  Ulick  had  spoken 
of  the  eighteenth-century  mystic.  For  the  question  had 
arisen  in  him  whether  the  passions  of  the  flesh  are  not  de- 
structive of  spiritual  exaltation,  and  he  told  her  that  ex- 
altation was  the  gospel  according  to  Blake.  We  must  seek 
to  exalt  ourselves,  to  live  in  the  idea;  sexual  passion  was  a 
merely  inferior  state,  but  mean  content  was  the  true  degra- 
dation. 

"  Then  passion  is  the  highest  plane  to  which  the  materi- 
alist can  rise  ? "  asked  Evelyn,  thinking  of  Owen. 

"  Yes ;  I  don't  think  I'm  wrong  in  admitting  that,  in 
the  main,  that  is  Blake's  contention." 

But  at  this  point  he  had  broken  off  his  discourse,  and 
told  an  anecdote  in  his  half-witty,  half-wistful  way  about 
an  article  which  he  had  written  on  Blake  and  which  had 
somehow  strayed  into  the  hands  of  a  man  and  his  witV  liv- 
ing in  Normandy.  This  couple  were  at  the  time  engaged 
in  continuing  the  tradition  of  Bastien  Lepage.  They  la- 
boriously copied  what  they  saw  in  the  fields — grey  days, 
hobnailed  boots  and  the  rest  of  it.  His  article  had,  how- 
ever, awakened  them  to  the  vanity  of  realism;  and  they 
had  taken  their  pictures  to  a  neighbouring  tower,  and  at 
the  top  of  it  made  a  holocaust  of  all  their  abominable  en- 
deavour. And  a  few  days  after,  two  faded  human  beings 
had  presented  themselves  at  Ulick's  lodgings  in  Blooms- 
bury,  seemingly  at  once  unhappy  and  excited,  and  pro- 
fessing their  complete  willingness  to  accept  the  gospel  of 
life  according  to  Blake.  It  was  the  man  who  did  the  talk- 
ing, the  woman,  who  was  dressed  in  olive-green  garments, 
acquiesced  in  what  he  said.  They  were  tired  of  material- 
ism; they  had  trudged  that  bleak  road  till  they  were  wearv. 
and  now  they  desired  Blake,  submission  to  Blake,  and  \\vro 


EVELYN  INNES. 

therefore  disappointed  when  TTlick  explained  that  Blake's 
doctrine  was  not  subordination  to  Blake,  but  the  very  op- 
posite, the  development  of  self,  the  cultivation  of  personal 
will. 

"  It  was  clear  to  me,"  Ulick  said,  "  that  the  woman  had 
abased  herself  before  the  man,  that  she  ate  what  he  ate, 
drank  what  he  drank,  thought  what  he  thought,  so  I  decided 
that  we  should  begin  with  first  principles;  that  the  woman 
should  decide  for  herself,  without  referring  to  her  husband, 
what  she  should  eat  for  dinner.  But  after  some  efforts  to 
attain  sufficient  personal  will,  she  confessed  her  incapacity, 
and  I  therefore  proposed  to  the  husband  that  she  should 
be  kept  in  her  room  until  she  had  regained  her  will.  They 
went  away  hopeful,  but  he  called  a  few  days  after  to  tell 
me  that  the  experiment  had  failed.  For  after  striving  for 
many  hours  to  decide  between  soles  and  plaice,  she  had 
burst  into  tears,  and  I  felt  I  could  not  advise  him  further." 

It  had  seemed  a  pity  to  ask  Ulick  how  much  of  this 
story  was  true,  how  much  invention;  and  it  was  remem- 
brance of  the  will-less  lady  in  the  olive-green  gown  that 
caused  Evelyn's  face  to  light  up  into  smiles  as  she  stood  at 
the  window  watching  for  his  coming. 

Her  excuse  for  not  marrying  Owen  was  that  she  would 
have  to  retire  from  the  stage.  But  she  was  not  convinced 
that  that  was  the  real  reason.  There  seemed  to  be  another 
reason  at  the  back  of  her  mind  which  her  reason  could  not 
drag  out.  She  tried  again  and  again,  but  it  eluded  her, 
and  it  was  frightening  to  find  that  she  had  so  little  knowl- 
edge of  the  motives  that  had  determined  her  life.  Feeling 
that  sne  must  change  her  thoughts,  she  asked  herself  what 
a  man  like  Ulick,  of  spiritual  temperament,  but  uninfected 
with  religious  dogma,  would  think  of  her  relations  with 
Owe".  "  Ah,  that  was  the  front  door  bell !  "  She  waited 
in  a  delicious  tremble  of  expectation,  and  the  servant  an- 
nouncing Sir  Owen  awoke  her,  and  with  a  shock  as  painful 
as  if  she  had  been  struck  on  the  nape  of  the  neck. 


24:0  EVELYN  INNES. 


XXL 

ON  account  of  the  numerous  rehearsals  demanded  by 
Evelyn  for  the  production  of  "  Tristan  and  Isolde,"  Mr. 
Hermann  Goetze's  opera  season  was  limited  to  four  nights 
a  week.  But  the  hours  she  spent  in  the  theatre  were  only 
a  small  part  of  the  time  she  devoted  to  her  idea.  Her  en- 
tire life  was  lived  in  or  about  the  new  incarnation,  her 
whole  life  seemed  to  converge  and  rush  into  an  ultimate 
channel,  and  Lady  Ascott  sought  her  in  vain.  She  avoided 
social  distractions,  and  the  friends  she  saw  were  those  who 
could  talk  to  her  about  her  idea.  But  while  listening  she 
forgot  them,  and  absorbed  in  her  dream  strayed  round  the 
piano.  She  meditated  journeys  to  Cornwall  and  Brittany; 
and  one  day  when  Owen  called  he  heard  that  she  had  gone 
to  Ireland,  and  was  expected  back  to-morrow  evening.  She 
read  Isolde  into  the  morning  paper,  receiving  hints  from 
the  cases  that  came  up  before  the  magistrates.  She 
found  Isolde  in  every  book,  all  that  happened  seemed  ex- 
traordinarily fortuitious,  the  light  of  her  idea  revealing 
significance  in  the  most  ordinary  things.  Her  life  was 
ransacked  like  an  old  work-box,  all  kinds  of  stages  of  men- 
tality, opinions,  beliefs,  prejudices,  trite  and  conventional 
enough,  came  up  and  were  thrown  aside.  But  now  and 
then  the  memory  of  an  emotion,  of  a  feeling,  would  prove 
to  be  just  what  she  wanted  to  add  a  moment's  life  to  her 
Isolde;  the  memory  of  a  gesture,  of  a  look  was  sufficient, 
and  she  sank  back  in  her  chair,  her  eyes  dilated  and  moody, 
thinking  how  she  could  work  this  truth  to  herself  into  the 
harmony  of  the  picture  she  was  elaborating. 

Evelyn  had  seen  Rosa  Sucher  play  the  part,  and  had 
admired  her  rendering  as  far  as  we  can  admire  that  which 
is  not  only  antagonistic,  but  even  discordant  to  our  own 
natures.  She  admitted  it  to  be  very  sweeping,  triumphant 
and  loud,  a  fine  braying  of  trumpets  from  the  rise  to  the 
fall  of  the  curtain.  Rosa  Sucher  had  no  doubt  attained 
an  extraordinary  oneness  of  idea,  but  at  what  price?  Her 
Isolde  was  a  hurricane,  a  sort  of  avalanche ;  and  the  woman 
was  lost  in  the  storm.  She  had  missed  the  magic  of  the 
woman  who,  personal  to  our  flesh  and  dream,  breaks  upon 
our  life  like  the  spring;  and  this  was  just  what  Evelyn  want- 


EVELYN  INNES.  247 

ed  to  put  on  the  stage.  There  was  plenty  of  breadth,  but  it 
was  breadth  at  the  price  of  accent.  There  was  a  great 
frame  and  a  sort  of  design  within  the  frame,  but  in  Eve- 
lyn's sense  the  picture  was  wanting.  There  was  an  ex- 
traordinary and  incomprehensible  neglect  of  that  personal 
accent  without  which  there  is  no  life.  And  the  difference 
between  the  Isolde  who  has  not  drunk  and  the  Isolde  who 
has  drunk  the  love  potion  which  she,  Evelyn,  was  so  intent 
upon  indicating,  had  never  occurred  to  Rosa  Sucher,  or  if 
it  had,  it  had  been  swept  aside  as  a  negligible  detail.  After 
all,  Isolde  has  to  be  a  woman  a  man  could  be  in  love  with, 
and  that  is  not  the  impact  and  the  shriek  of  a  gale  from 
the  south-west.  No  doubt  Rosa  Sucher's  idea  of  the  part 
was  Wagner's  idea  at  one  moment  of  his  life.  Wagner  was 
a  man  with  hundreds  of  ideas;  he  tried  them  all,  retaining 
some  and  discarding  others.  Some  half-dozen  have  fixed 
themselves  immutably  in  certain  minds,  and  an  undue  im- 
portance is  given  to  them,  an  importance  that  Wagner 
would  never  have  allowed.  The  absurd  idea,  propounded 
in  the  heat  of  controversy,  that  all  the  arts  were  to  wax 
to  one  art  in  the  music  drama,  that  even  sculpture  was  to 
be  represented  by  attitudes  of  the  actors  and  actresses! 
Wagner  had  written  this  thing  in  order  to  confound  his 
enemies  and  bring  the  weak-kneed  to  his  side,  or  maybe  it 
was  merely  written  to  make  himself  clear  to  himself.  For 
it  was  impossible  that  a  man  of  genius  should  be  so  serious- 
ly wanting  in  appreciation  of  sculpture  as  to  think  that  the 
centre  of  his  brain,  that  an  actor  standing,  his  hand  on  his 
hip,  could  fill  the  place  hitherto  occupied  in  the  mind  by, 
let  us  say,  the  Hermes  of  Praxiticles.  Yet  this  idea  still 
obtained  at  Bayreuth,  and  Rosa  Sucher  walked  about,  her 
arms  raised  and  posed  above  her  head,  in  the  conventional, 
statuesque  attitude  designed  for  the  decoration  of  beer 
gardens. 

"  It  really  is  very  sad,"  Evelyn  said,  her  eyes  twinkling 
with  the  humour  of  the  idea,  "  that  anyone  should  think 
that  such  figuration  could  replace  sculpture." 

"  But  you  will  not  deny  that  the  actor  and  the  actress 
can  supply  part  of  the  picturesqueness  of  a  dramatic 
action." 

"  No,  indeed ;  but  not  by  attitudinising,  but  by  gestures 
that  tell  the  emotion  that  is  in  the  mind." 


248  EVELYN  INNES. 

By  some  obscure  route  of  which  they  were  not  aware, 
these  artistic  discussions  wound  around  the  idea  which 
dominated  their  minds,  and  they  were  led  back  to  it  con- 
tinually. The  story  of  "  Tristan  and  Isolde "  seemed  to 
be  their  own  story,  and  when  their  eyes  met,  each  divined 
what  was  passing  in  the  other's  mind.  The  music  was 
afloat  on  the  currents  of  their  blood.  It  gathered  in  the 
brain,  paralysing  it,  and  the  nervous  exhaustion  was  un- 
bearable about  six,  when  the  servant  had  taken  away  the 
tea  things;  and  as  the  afternoon  drooped  and  the  beauty 
of  the  summer  evening  began  in  the  park,  speech  seemed 
vain,  and  they  could  not  bring  themselves  to  argue  any 
longer. 

It  was  quite  true  that  she  had  begun  to  feel  the  blank- 
ness  of  the  positivist  creed,  if  it  were  possible  to  call  it  a 
creed.  There  seemed  nothing  left  of  it,  it  seemed  to  have 
shrivelled  up  like  a  little  withered  leaf;  true  or  false,  it 
meant  nothing  to  her,  it  crushed  up  like  a  dried  leaf,  and 
the  dust  escaped  through  her  fingers.  Then  without  any 
particular  reason  she  remembered  a  phrase  she  had  heard 
in  the  theatre. 

"  As  I  always  says,  if  one  man  isn't  enough  for  a  woman, 
twenty  aren't  too  many." 

The  homeliness  of  this  speech  seemed  to  accentuate  the 
moral  truth,  and  making  application  of  it  to  herself,  she 
felt  that  if  she  were  to  take  another  lover  she  would  not 
stop  at  twenty.  Her  face  contracted  in  an  expression  of 
disgust  at  this  glimpse  of  her  inner  nature  which  had  been 
flashed  upon  her;  and  looking  into  herself  she  could  dis- 
cover nothing  but  a  talent  for  singing  and  acting.  If  she 
had  not  had  her  voice,  God  only  knows  what  she  would 
have  been,  and  she  turned  her  eyes  from  a  vision  of  gradual 
decadence.  If  she  were  not  to  sink  to  the  lowest,  she  must 
hold  to  her  love  of  Owen,  and  not  yield  to  her  love  of 
Ulick.  This  low  nature  which  she  could  distinguish  in 
herself  she  must  conquer,  or  it  would  conquer  her.  "  If 
one  man  isn't  enough  for  a  woman,  twenty  are  not  too 
many."  The  humble  working  woman  who  had  uttered 
these  words  was  right.  ...  If  she  were  to  give  way  she 
would  have  twenty  and  would  end  by  throwing  herself  over 
one  of  the  bridges. 

She  felt  that  she  must  marry  Owen,  and  under  this  con- 


EVELYN  1NNES.  249 

elusion  she  stopped  like  one  who  has  come  face  to  face  with 
a  blank  wall.  But  did  she  love  him  well  enough  to  marry 
him?  She  loved  him,  but  was  her  present  love  as  intense 
as  the  love  that  had  obsessed  her  whole  nature  in  Paris  six 
years  ago  ?  She  tried  to  think  that  it  was,  and  found  casual 
consolation  in  the  thought  that  if  she  were  not  so  mad  about 
him  now  as  she  was  then,  her  'love  was  deeper ;  it  had  be- 
come a  part  of  herself,  and  was  founded  on  such  knowledge 
of  his  character  that  nothing  could  change  or  alter  it.  She 
knew  now  that  in  spite  of  all  his  faults  she  could  trust  him, 
and  that  was  something ;  she  knew  that  his  love  for  her  was 
enduring,  that  it  was  not  a  mere  passing  passion,  as  it 
easily  might  have  been.  He  had  given  her  fame,  wealth, 
position — everything  a  woman  could  desire.  Some  might 
blame  him  for  having  taken  her  away  from  her  home,  but 
she  did  not  blame  him,  for  she  knew  that  she  could  not 
have  remained  with  her  father  at  that  time.  If  she  had 
not  gone  away  with  Owen  she  might  have  killed  herself; 
something  had  given  way  within  her,  she  had  to  do  what 
she  had  done. 

But  did  she  love  Owen,  or  was  she  getting  tired  of  him  ? 
It  was  so  easy  to  ask  and  so  difficult  to  answer  these  ques- 
tions. However  closely  we  look  into  our  souls,  some  part 
of  the  truth  escapes  us.  One  always  slurred  something  or 
exaggerated  something.  .  .  .  She  remembered  that  Owen 
had  been  very  tiresome  lately;  his  egoism  was  ceaseless;  it 
got  upon  her  nerves,  and  she  felt  that,  no  matter  what 
happened  to  her,  she  could  not  endure  it.  There  were  his 
songs !  How  tired  she  was  of  talking  about  his  songs,  the 
long  considerations  whether  this  chord  or  the  other  chord, 
this  modulation  or  another,  were  the  better.  He  could  not 
compose  a  dozen  bars  without  having  them  engraved  and 
sending  copies  to  his  friends.  He  wished  the  whole  world 
to  be  occupied  about  him  and  his  affairs.  He  was  so  child- 
ish about  his  music.  Other  people  said,  "  Oh,  yes,  very 
pretty,"  but  she  had  to  sing  it.  If  she  refused,  it  meant 
unpleasantness,  and  though  he  did  not  often  say  so,  a 
charge  of  ingratitude,  for,  of  course,  without  him  she 
wouldn't  have  been  able  to  sing  at  all.  The  worst  of  it 
was  that  he  did  not  see  the  ridiculous  side. 

When  singing  some  of  his  songs,  she  had  caught  a  look 
in  people's  eyes,  a  pitying  look,  and  she  could  not  help 


250  EVELYN  INNES. 

wondering  if  they  thought  that  she  liked  such  common- 
place, or  worse  still,  if  they  thought  that  she  was  obliged 
to  sing  it.  But  when  she  had  remembered  all  he  had  done 
for  her,  it  seemed  quite  a  disgrace  that  she  should  hate  to 
sing  his  songs.  It  was  the  one  thing  she  could  do  to  please 
him,  and  she  reflected  on  her  selfishness.  She  seemed  to 
have  no  moral  qualities;  the  idea  she  had  expressed  to 
Ulick  regarding  the  necessity  of  chastity  in  women  re- 
turned, and  she  felt  sure  that  in  women  at  least  every  other 
virtue  is  dependent  on  that  virtue.  But  when  Owen  was 
ill  she  had  travelled  hundreds  of  miles  to  nurse  him;  she 
had  not  hesitated  a  moment,  and  she  might  have  caught 
the  fever.  She  wouldn't  have  done  that  if  she  did  not  love 
him.  .  .  .  She  was  always  thinking  how  she  could  help  him, 
she  would  do  anything  for  him.  But  he  was  such  a  strange 
man.  There  were  times  when  there  was  no  one  kinder, 
gentler,  more  affectionate,  but  at  other  times  he  turned 
round  and  snappd  like  a  mad  dog.  The  desire  to  be  rude 
took  him  at  times  like  a  disease;  this  was  his  most  obvious 
fault.  But  his  worst  fault,  at  least  in  her  eyes,  was  his  love 
of  parade;  his  determination  to  appear  to  the  world  in  the 
aspect  which  he  thought  was  his  by  birth  and  position. 
Notwithstanding  a  seeming  absence  of  affection  and  can- 
dour, he  was  always  acting  a  part.  True  that  he  played 
the  part  very  well;  and  his  snobbery  was  never  vulgar. 

Thinking  of  him  profoundly,  looking  into  his  nature 
with  the  clear  sight  of  six  years  of  life  with  him,  she  de- 
cided that  the  essential  fault  was  an  inability  to  forego  the 
temptation  of  the  moment.  For  him  the  temptation  of  the 
moment  was  the  greatest  of  all.  He  was  the  essential  child, 
and  had  carried  all  the  child's  passionate  egoism  into  his 
middle  age.  One  gave  way  because  everything  seemed  to 
mean  so  much  more  to  him  than  it  could  to  oneself.  He 
could  not  be  deprived  of  his  toy;  his  toy  came  before  every- 
thing. But  why  did  he  make  himself  offensive  to  many 
people  by  speaking  against  Christianity?  It  was  so  illogi- 
cal to  love  art  as  he  did,  and  to  hate  religion.  .  .  .  He  had 
listened  much  more  indulgently  to  Ulick  than  she  had  ex- 
pected, and  seemed  to  perceive  the  picturesqueness  of  the 
gods,  Angus  and  Lir.  It  was  Christianity  that  irritated 
and  changed  him  to  the  cynic  he  was  not,  and  forced  him 
into  arguments  which  she  hated :  "  that  when  you  went  to 


EVELYN  INNES.  251 

the  root  of  things,  no  one  ever  acted  except  from  a  selfish 
motive  "  and  his  aphorism,  "  I  don't  believe  in  temptations 
that  one  doesn't  yield  to."  Her  thoughts  went  back  over 
years,  to  the  very  day  he  had  said  the  words  to  her  for  the 
first  time.  ...  It  was  true  in  a  way,  but  it  was  not  the 
whole  truth.  But  to  him  it  was  the  whole  truth,  that  was 
the  unfortunate  part  of  it,  and  his  life  was  a  complete  ex- 
emplification of  this  theory,  and  the  result  was  one  of  the 
unhappiest  men  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  He  would  tell 
you  he  had  the  finest  place  in  the  world,  and  the  finest  pic- 
tures in  the  world,  yet  these  things  did  not  save  him  from 
unhappiiiess.  He  could  not  understand  that  happiness  is 
attained  through  renunciation.  He  had  never  renounced 
anything,  and  so  his  life  was  a  mere  triviality.  The  clear- 
ness of  her  vision  surprised  her;  she  paused  a  moment 
and  then  continued.  He  must  always  be  amused,  he  could 
not  bear  to  be  alone.  Distraction,  distraction,  distraction 
was  his  one  cry.  She  had  to  combat  the  spectre  of  bore- 
dom and  save  the  man  from  himself.  Hitherto  she  had 
done  this,  it  had  been  her  pleasure,  but  if  she  married  him 
it  would  become  her  mission,  her  duty,  her  life.  Could  she 
undertake  it?  Her  heart  sank.  He  had  worn  her  out,  she 
could  do  no  more.  She  grew  frightened,  life  seemed  too 
much  for  her;  and  then  she  bit  her  lips,  and  vowed  that 
whatever  it  cost  her  she  would  marry  him  if  he  wished  her 
to.  ...  If  she  did  not  mean,  to  take  the  consequences,  sho 
ought  not  to  have  gone  away  with  him.  To  be  Owen's  wife 
was  perchance  her  mission. 

It  had  always  been  arranged  that  they  were  to  be  mar- 
ried when  she  left  the  stage.  But  he  wished  her  to  remain 
on  the  stage  till  she  had  played  Kundry;  but  if  she  were 
going  to  leave  the  stage  she  did  not  care  to  delay,  nor  did 
she  care  for  the  part  of  Kundry.  The  meaning  of  the  part 
escaped  her.  ...  So  the  time  had  come  for  her  to  offer 
herself  to  Owen.  Whatever  his  desires  might  be,  his 
honour  would  force  him  to  say  Yes.  So  there  was  no 
escape.  Fate  had  decreed  it  so,  she  was  to  be  his  wife ;  but 
one  thing  she  need  not  endure,  and  that  was  unnecessary 
suspense.  She  had  decided  to  go  to  Lady  Ascott's  ball. 
.  .  .  But  she  wouldn't  see  him  there.  He  was  kept  indoors 
by  the  gout.  He  had  written  asking  her  to  come  and  pass 
the  evening  with  him.  .  .  .  She  might  call  to  see  him  on 


252  EVELYN  IXNES. 

her  way  to  the  ball ;  yes,  that  is  what  she  would  do,  and  she 
sat  down  at  once  and  wrote  a  note. 

And  she  laughed  and  talked  during  dinner,  and  was  sur- 
prised when  Lady  Duckle  remarked  how  pale  and  ill  she 
was  looking,  for  she  thought  she  was  making  a  fine  outward 
show  of  high  spirits.  She  and  Lady  Duckle  were  dining 
alone,  and  she  tried  to  devise  a  plan  for  going  to  Berkeley 
Square  without  taking  Lady  Duckle  into  her  confidence. 
The  horrible  scene  with  Owen  flitted  before  her  eyes  while 
talking  of  other  things.  And  so  the  evening  dragged  itself 
out  in  the  drawing-room. 

"  Olive,  I  want  to  make  a  call  before  going  to  Lady  As- 
cott's;  I  will  send  the  carriage  back  for  you." 

"But  we  need  not  get  there  until  a  quarter  to  one. 
There  will  be  plenty  of  time." 

"  Very  well,"  Evelyn  answered,  as  unconcernedly  as  she 
could.  "  I'll  be  here  a  little  after  twelve." 

In  the  carriage  she  remembered  that  she  was  going  to 
the  same  house  to  tell  him  that  she  would  be  his  wife  as 
she  had  gone  to  tell  him  she  would  be  his  mistress. 

"  Sir  Owen  has  been  very  bad  to-day,  miss,"  the  butler 
said  in  a  confidential  undertone.  "  It  has  taken  him  again 
in  his  right  toe;  "  and  he  leaned  forward  to  open  the  door 
of  Owen's  private  sitting-room. 

She  passed  in,  the  door  closed  softly  behind  her,  and  she 
saw  her  lover  lying  in  a  large,  chintz-covered  arm-chair, 
full  of  cushions,  deep  like  a  feather  bed.  He  held  his  book 
high,  so  that  all  the  light  of  the  electric  lamp  fell  upon  it, 
and  the  small,  wrinkled  face  seemed  to  have  suddenly  grown 
older  behind  the  spectacles,  and  the  appearance  at  that  mo- 
ment was  of  a  man  just  slipping  over  the  years  that  divide 
middle  from  old  age. 

In  the  single  second  that  elapsed  before  they  spoke, 
Evelyn  felt  and  understood  a  great  deal.  Never  had  Owen 
seemed  so  like  himself;  the  old  age  which  so  visibly  had 
laid  its  wrinkles  and  infirmities  upon  him  was  clearly  his 
old  age,  and  the  old  age  of  his  fathers  before  him.  He  was 
in  his  own  old  room,  planned  and  ordered  by  himself.  Even 
his  arm-chair  seemed  characteristic  of  him.  With  what- 
ever hardships  he  might  put  up  in  the  hunting  field  or  the 
deer  forest,  he  believed  in  the  dcrpr-t  arm-chair  that  up- 
holstery could  stuff  when  he  came  home.  In  this  room 


EVELYN  INNES.  253 

Avere  his  personal  pictures,  those  he  had  bought  himself. 
They,  of  course,  included  a  beautiful  woman  by  Gainsbor- 
ough, and  a  pellucid  evening  sky,  with  a  group  of  pensive 
trees,  by  Corot.  There  were  beautiful  painted  tables  and 
chairs,  and  marble  and  ormolu  clocks,  the  refined  and 
gracious  designs  of  the  best  periods ;  and  the  sight  of  Owen 
sitting  amid  all  these  attempts  to  capture  happiness,  re- 
vealed to  her  the  moral  idea  of  which  this  man  was  but  a 
symbol;  and  the  thought  that  life  without  a  moral  purpose 
is  but  a  passing  spectre,  and  that  our  immortality  lies  in 
our  religious  life,  occurred  to  her  again.  His  first  remark, 
too,  about  his  gout,  that  it  wasn't  much,  but  just  enough 
to  make  life  a  curse — could  she  tell  him  what  end  was 
served  by  torturing  us  in  this  way? — laid,  as  it  were,  an  ac- 
cent upon  the  thoughts  of  him  that  were  passing  in  her 
mind. 

It  was  that  crouching  attitude  in  the  arm-chair  that  had 
made  him  seem  so  old.  Now  that  he  had  taken  off  his 
spectacles,  and  was  standing  up,  he  did  not  look  older  than 
his  age.  He  wore  a  silk  shirt  and  a  black  velvet  smoking 
suit,  and  had  kept  his  figure — it  still  went  in  at  the  waist. 
She  admired  him  for  a  moment,  and  then  pitied  him,  for 
he  limped  painfully  and  pulled  over  one  of  his  own  chairs 
for  her.  But  she  declined  it,  choosing  a  less  comfortable 
one,  feeling  that  she  must  sit  straight  up  if  she  were  to 
moralise.  She  had  imagined  that  the  subject  would  intro- 
duce itself  in  the  course  of  conversation,  and  that  it  would 
develop  imperceptibly.  She  had  imagined  that  they  would 
speak  of  the  first  performance  of  "  Tristan  and  Isolde," 
now  distant  but  a  couple  of  days,  or  of  Lady  Ascott's  ball, 
at  which  she  had  promised  to  appear.  But  Owen  had 
spoken  of  a  song  which  he  had  re-written  that  afternoon, 
not  having  anything  else  to  do.  He  believed  he  had  im- 
mensely improved  it,  and  wished  that  she  would  try  it  over. 
To  sing  one  of  his  songs,  to  decipher  manuscript,  was  the 
last  thing  she  felt  she  could  do,  and  the  proposal  irritated 
her.  Her  whole  life  was  at  stake;  it  had  cost  her  a  great 
deal  to  come  to  the  decision  that  she  must  either  marry 
him  or  send  him  away.  Partly  on  purpose,  and  partly  be- 
cause she  could  not  help  it,  her  face  assumed  a  calm  and 
fixed  expression  which  he  knew  well. 

"  Evelyn,  you're  going  to  say  something  disagreeable. 


254  EVELYN  INNES. 

Don't,  I've  had  enough  to  worry  me  lately;  there's  my 
mother's  health,  and  this  miserable  attack  of  gout." 

"  I  hope  you  won't  think  what  I've  come  to  say  dis- 
agreeable, but  one  never  knows."  He  waited  anxiously, 
and  after  some  pause  she  said,  though  it  seemed  to  her  that 
she  had  come  to  the  point  much  too  abruptly,  "  Owen,  was 
it  not  arranged  that  we  should  marry  when  I  left  the 
stage  ?  "  She  had  not  been  able  to  lend  herself  to  the  dip- 
lomatic subtleties  which  she  had  been  considering  all  the 
evening,  and  had  stumbled  in  the  first  step.  But  the  mis- 
take had  been  made,  they  were  face  to  face  with  the  ques- 
tion— it  was  for  her  not  to  give  way.  She  had  noticed  the 
look  that  had  passed  between  his  eyes,  and  she  was  not  sur- 
prised at  the  slight  evasion  of  his  answer,  "  But  you  are  go- 
ing to  sing  Kundry  next  year  ? "  for  she  knew  him  to  be 
naturally  as  averse  to  marriage  as  she  was  herself. 

"I  don't  think  I  should  succeed  as  Kundry.  I  don't 
know  what  the  part  means." 

"  But  she's  a  penitent.  You  like  penitents ;  your  Eliza- 
beth  " 

"  Elizabeth  is  different.  Elizabeth  is  an  inward  peni- 
tent, Kundry  is  an  external,  and  you  know  I  can  do  nothing 
with  externalities." 

He  did  not  understand,  and  it  was  impossible  to  explain 
without  entering  into  a  complete  exposition  of  Ulick's  idea 
regarding  "  Parsifal."  The  subject  of  "  Parsifal  "  had  al- 
ways been  disagreeable  to  him,  but  he  had  not  been  able  to 
find  any  argument  against  the  art  of  it.  So  the  criticism 
"  revolting  hypocrisy,"  "  externality,"  and  the  statement 
that  the  prelude  to  "  Lohengrin  "  was  an  inspiration,  where- 
as the  prelude  to  "  Parsifal "  was  but  a  marvellous  piece 
of  handicraft,  delighted  him.  He  had  always  known  these 
things,  but  had  not  been  able  to  give  them  expression.  He 
wondered  how  Evelyn  had  attained  to  so  clear  an  under- 
standing, and  then,  unconsciously  detecting  another  mind 
in  the  argument,  he  said — 

"  I  wonder  what  Ulick  Dean  thinks  of  '  Parsifal '  ? 
Something  original,  I'm  sure." 

She  could  not  explain  that  she  had  not  intended  to  de- 
ceive; she  could  not  tell  him  that  she  was  so  pressed  and 
obsessed  by  the  question  of  her  marriage  that  she  hardly 
knew  what  she  was  saying,  and  had  repeated  Ulick's  ideas 


EVELYN  INNES.  255 

mechanically.  She  already  seemed  to  stand  convicted  of  in- 
sincerity. He  evidently  suspected  her,  and  all  the  while  he 
spoke  of  Ulick  and  "  Parsifal,"  she  suffered  a  sort  of  trem- 
bling sickness,  and  that  he  should  have  perceived  whence 
her  enlightenment  had  come  embittered  her  against  him. 
Suddenly  he  came  to  the  end  of  what  he  had  to  say;  their 
eyes  met,  and  he  said — 

"  Very  well,  Evelyn,  we'll  be  married  next  week ;  is  that 
soon  enough  ?  " 

The  abruptness  of  his  choice  fell  upon  her  so  suddenly, 
that  she  answered  stupidly  that  next  week  would  do  very 
well.  She  felt  that  she  ought  to  get  up  and  kiss  him,  and 
she  was  painfully  conscious  that  her  expression  was  the  re- 
verse of  pleased. 

"  I  don't  want  to  limp  to  the  altar ;  were  it  not  for  the 
gout  I'd  say  to-morrow.  .  .  .  But  something  has  happened, 
something  has  forced  you  to  this  ?  " 

He  did  not  dare  to  suggest  scruples  of  conscience.  But 
his  thoughts  were  already  back  in  Florence. 

"  Only  that  you  often  have  said  you'd  like  to  marry  me. 
One  never  knows  if  such  things  are  true.  It  may  have 
been  mere  gallantry  on  your  part ;  on  the  other  hand,  I  am 
vain  enough  to  believe  that  perhaps  you  meant  it."  Then 
it  seemed  to  her  that  she  must  be  sincere.  "  As  I  am  de- 
termined that  our  present  relations  shall  cease,  there  was 
no  help  for  it  but  to  come  and  tell  you." 

Her  eyes  were  cast  down;  the  expression  of  her  face 
was  calm  resolution,  whereas  his  face  betrayed  anxiety,  and 
the  twitching  and  pallor  of  the  eyes  a  secret  indecision 
with  which  he  was  struggling. 

"  Then  I  suppose  it  is  scruples  of  conscience.  .  .  . 
You've  been  to  Mass  at  St.  Joesph's." 

"  We  won't  enter  into  that  question.  We've  talked  it 
for  the  last  six  years;  you  cannot  change  me." 

The  desire  to  please  was  inveterate  in  her,  and  she  felt 
that  she  had  never  been  so  displeasing,  and  she  was  aware 
that  he  was  showing  to  better  advantage  in  this  scene  than 
she  was.  She  wished  that  he  had  hesitated;  if  he  had  only 
given  her  some  excuse  for She  did  not  finish  the  sen- 
tence in  her  mind,  but  thought  instead  that  she  liked  him 
better  when  he  wasn't  so  good;  goodness  did  not  seem  to 
suit  him. 

17 


256  EVELYN  INNES. 

She  wore  a  beautiful  attractive  gown,  a  mauve  silk 
embroidered  witb  silver  irises,  and  he  regretted  his  gout 
which  kept  him  from  the  ball.  He  caught  sight  of  her 
as  she  passed  down  the  glittering  floor,  saving  with  a  pretty 
movement  of  her  shoulders  the  dress  that  was  slipping  from 
them,  he  saw  himself  dancing  with  her.  .  .  .  They  passed 
in  front  of  a  mirror,  and  looking  straight  over  her  shoulder 
his  eyes  followed  the  tremulous  sparkle  of  the  diamond 
wings  which  she  wore  in  her  hair.  Then,  yielding  to  an  im- 
pulse of  which  he  was  not  ashamed,  for  it  was  as  much 
affection  as  it  was  sensual,  he  drew  over  a  chair — he  would 
have  knelt  at  her  feet  had  it  not  been  for  his  gout — and 
passing  his  arm  about  her  waist,  he  said — 

"  Dearest,  I'm  very  fond  of  you,  you  know  that.  It  is 
not  my  fault  if  I  prefer  to  be  your  lover  rather  than  your 
husband."  He  kissed  her  on  her  shoulder,  laying  his  cheek 
on  it.  "  Don't  you  believe  that  I  am  fond  of  you,  Evelyn  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Owen,  I  think  you  are." 

"  Not  a  very  enthusiastic  reply.  It  used  to  be  you  who 
delighted  to  throw  your  arms  about  my  neck.  But  all  that 
is  over  and  done  with." 

"  One  is  not  always  in  such  humours,  Owen." 

Watching  each  other's  eyes  they  were  conscious  of  their 
souls;  every  moment  it  seemed  as  if  their  souls  must  float 
up  and  be  discovered;  and,  while  fearing  discovery,  there 
came  a  yearning  to  stand  out  of  all  shadow  in  the  full 
light.  But  they  could  not  tell  their  souls;  words  fell  back 
abortive;  and  they  recognised  the  mortal  lot  of  aliena- 
tion; and  rebelling  against  it,  he  held  her  face,  he  sought 
her  lips,  but  she  turned  her  face  aside,  leaving  him  her 
cheek. 

"  Why  do  you  turn  your  lips  away  ?  It  is  a  long  time 
since  I've  kissed  you  .  .  .  you're  cold  and  indifferent  lately, 
Evelyn." 

A  memory  of  Ulick  shot  through  her  mind,  and  he 
would  have  divined  her  thought  if  his  perception  had  not 
been  blinded  by  the  passion  which  swayed  him. 

"  No,  Owen,  no.  We're  an  engaged  couple ;  we're  no 
longer  lovers." 

"  And  you  think  that  we  should  begin  by  respecting  the 
marriage  ceremony?" 

She  seemed  to  lose  sight  of  him,  she  perceived  only  the 


EVELYN  INNES.  257 

general  idea,  that  outline  of  her  life  which  he  represented, 
and  which  she  could  in  a  way  trace  in  the  furniture  of  the 
room.  It  was  in  this  room  she  had  said  she  would  be  his 
mistress.  It  was  from  this  room  she  had  started  for  Paris. 
Her  eyes  lighted  on  the  harpsichord.  He  had  bought  it 
in  some  vague  intention  of  presenting  it  to  her  father,  some 
day  when  they  were  reconciled;  the  viola  da  gamba  he 
had  bought  for  her  sake;  it  was  the  poor  little  excuse  he 
had  devised  for  coming  to  see  her  at  Dulwich. 

She  saw  the  Gainsborough :  how  strange  and  remote  it 
seemed !  She  looked  at  the  Corot,  its  sentimentality  was 
an  irritation.  In  the  Chippendale  bookcases  there  were 
many  books  she  had  given  him;  and  the  white  chimney 
piece  was  covered  with  her  photographs.  There  he  was,  a 
tall,  thin  man,  elegant  and  attractive  notwithstanding  the 
forty-five  years,  dressed  in  a  silk  shirt  and  a  black  smoking 
suit.  Their  eyes  met  again,  she  could  see  that  he  was 
thinking  it  over;  but  it  was  all  settled  now,  neither  could 
draw  back,  and  the  moments  were  tense  and  silent;  and  as 
if  confronted  by  some  imminent  peril,  she  wondered. 

"  You  arranged  that  I  should  leave  the  stage  when  I 
married,  and  you  say  that  we  are  to  be  married  next  week. 
You  don't  want  me  to  throw  up  my  engagement  at  Covent 
Garden?  I  should  like  to  play  Isolde." 

"  Of  course  you  must  play  Isolde ;  I  must  hear  you  sing 
Isolde." 

She  felt  that  she  must  get  up  and  thank  him,  she  felt 
that  she  must  be  nice  to  him;  and  laying  her  hand  on 
his  shoulder,  she  said — 

"  I  hope  I  don't  seem  ungrateful ;  you  have  always  been 
very  good  to  me,  Owen.  I  hope  I  shall  make  a  good 
wife." 

"  I  think  I  am  less  changed  than  you ;  I  don't  think  you 
care  for  me  as  you  used  to." 

"  Yes,  I  do,  Owen,  but  I  am  not  always  the  same.  I 
can't  help  myself." 

He  watched  her  face;  she  had  forgotten  him,  she  was 
again  thinking  of  herself.  She  had  tried  to  be  sincere, 
but  again  had  been  mastered  by  her  mood.  No,  she  did 
not  dislike  him,  but  she  wished  for  an  interval,  a  temporary 
separation.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she  didn't  want  to  see 
him  for  some  weeks,  some  months,  perhaps.  If  he  would 


258  EVELYN  INNES. 

consent  to  such  an  alienation,  she  felt  that  she  would  come 
back  fonder  of  him  than  ever.  All  this  did  not  seem  very 
sane,  but  she  could  not  think  otherwise,  and  the  desire  of 
departure  was  violent  in  her  as  a  nostalgia. 

"  We  have  been  very  fond  of  each  other.  I  wonder  if 
we  shall  be  as  happy  in  married  life?  Do  you  think  we 
shall?" 

"  I  hope  so,  Owen,  but  somehow  I  don't  see  myself  as 
Lady  Asher." 

"  You  know  everyone — Lady  Ascott,  Lady  Somersdean, 
they  are  all  your  friends,  it  will  be  just  the  same." 

"  Yes,  it'll  be  just  the  same." 

He  did  not  catch  the  significance  of  the  repetition. 
He  was  thinking  of  the  credit  she  would  do  him  as  Lady 
Asher.  He  heard  his  friends  discussing  his  marriage  at 
the  clubs.  She  was  going  to  Lady  Ascott's  ball,  and  would 
announce  her  engagement  there.  To-morrow  everyone 
would  be  talking  about  it.  He  would  like  his  engagement 
known,  but  not  while  she  was  on  the  stage.  But  when  he 
mentioned  this,  she  said  she  did  not  see  why  their  engage- 
ment should  be  kept  a  secret.  It  did  not  matter  much; 
he  was  quite  ready  to  give  way,  but  he  could  not  under- 
stand why  the  remark  should  have  angered  her.  And  her 
obstinacy  frightened  him  not  a  little.  If  he  were  to  find 
a  different  woman  in  his  wife  from  the  woman  he  had  loved 
in  the  opera  singer! 

"  Evelyn,  you  have  lived  with  me  in  spite  of  your 
scruples  for  the  last  six  years;  why  should  we  not  go  on 
for  one  more  year?  When  you  have  sung  Kundry,  we  can 
be  married." 

"  Owen,  do  you  think  you  want  to  marry  me  ?  Is  not 
your  offer  mere  chivalry?  Noblesse  obUgel" 

That  he  was  still  master  of  the  situation  caused  a  de- 
licious pride  to  mount  to  his  head.  For  a  moment  he  could 
not  answer,  then  he  asked  if  she  were  sure  that  she  had  not 
come  to  care  for  someone  else,  and  feeling  this  to  be  in- 
effective, he  added — 

"  I've  always  noticed  that  when  women  change  their 
affections,  they  become  a  prey  to  scruples  of  conscience." 

"  If  I  cared  for  anyone  else,  should  I  come  to  you  to- 
night and  offer  to  marry  you?" 

"You're  a  strange  woman;  it  would  not  surprise  me  if 


EVELYN  INNES.  259 

the  reason  why  you  wish  to  be  married  is  because  you're 
afraid  of  a  second  lover.  That  would  be  very  like  you." 

His  words  startled  her  in  the  very  bottom  of  her  soul; 
she  had  not  thought  of  such  a  thing,  but  now  he  mentioned 
it,  she  was  not  sure  that  he  had  not  guessed  rightly. 

How  well  he  understood  one  side  of  her  nature;  how 
he  failed  to  understand  the  other !  It  was  this  want  in  him 
that  made  marriage  between  them  impossible.  She  smiled 
mysteriously,  for  she  was  thinking  how  far  and  how  near 
he  had  always  been. 

"  Tell  me,  Evelyn,  tell  me  truly,  is  it  on  account  of 
religious  scruples,  or  is  it  because  you  are  afraid  of  falling 
in  love  with  Ulick  Dean,  that  you  came  here  to-night  and 
asked  me  to  marry  you  ?  " 

"  Owen,  we  can  live  in  contradiction  to  our  theories, 
but  not  in  contradiction  to  our  feelings,  and  you  know 
that  my  life  has  always  seemed  to  me  fundamentally 
wrong." 

For  a  moment  he  seemed  to  understand,  but  his  egotism 
intervened,  and  a  moment  after  he  understood  nothing, 
except  that  for  some  stupid  morality  she  was  about  to 
break  her  artistic  career  sharp  off. 

He  strove  to  think  what  was  passing  behind  that  fore- 
head. He  tried  to  read  her  soul  in  the  rounded  temples, 
the  bright,  nervous  eyes.  His  and  her  understanding  of 
life  and  the  mystery  of  life  were  as  wide  apart  as  the  earth 
and  the  moon,  and  he  could  but  stare  wondering.  No 
inkling  of  the  truth  reached  him.  As  he  strove  to  under- 
stand her  mind  he  grew  irritated,  and  turned  against  that 
shadow  religion  which  had  always  separated  them.  With- 
out knowing  why — almost  in  spite  of  himself — he  began 
to  argue  with  her.  He  reminded  her  of  her  inconsistencies. 
She  had  always  said  that  a  lover  was  much  more  exciting 
than  a  husband.  If  it  had  not  been  for  her  religion,  he 
did  not  believe  they  would  have  thought  of  marriage,  they 
would  have  gone  on  to  the  end  as  they  had  begun.  The 
sound  of  his  voice  entered  her  ears,  but  the  meaning  of 
the  words  did  not  reach  her  brain,  and  when  she  had  said 
that  she  had  come  to  him  not  on  account  of  Ulick,  but  on 
account  of  her  conscience,  she  sat  perplexed,  trying  to 
discover  if  she  had  told  the  truth. 

"You're  not  listening,  Evelyn." 


260  EVELYN  INNES. 

"Yes,  I  am,  Owen.  You  said  that  I  had  always  said 
that  a  lover  was  much  more  exciting  than  a  husband." 

"  If  so,  why  then ' 

They  stared  blankly  at  each  other.  Everything  had 
been  said.  They  were  engaged  to  be  married.  What  was 
the  use  of  further  argument?  She  mentioned  that  it  was 
getting  late,  and  that  Lady  Duckle  was  waiting  for  her. 

"She  will  tell  her  first,"  he  thought,  "and  she'll  tell 
Lady  Ascott.  They'll  all  be  talking  of  it  at  supper.  '  So 
Owen  has  gone  off  at  last,'  they'll  say.  I'll  hear  of  it  at  the 
club  to-morrow." 

"  I  wonder  what  Lady  Ascott  will  think  ?  "  he  said,  as  he 
put  her  into  the  carriage. 

"  I  don't  know.  ...  I  shall  not  go  to  the  ball.  Tell  him 
to  take  me  home." 

She  lay  back  in  the  blue  shadows  of  the  brougham, 
striving  to  come  to  terms  with  terself,  to  arrive  at  some 
plain  conclusion.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  been  ani- 
mated by  an  honest  and  noble  purpose.  She  had  gone 
to  Owen  in  the  intention  of  marrying  him  if  he  wished 
to  marry  her,  because  it  had  seemed  to  her  that  it  was  her 
duty  to  marry  him.  But  everything  had  turned  out  the 
very  opposite  of  what  she  had  intended,  and  looking  back 
upon  the  hour  she  had  spent  with  him,  it  seemed  to  her 
that  she  had  certainly  deceived  him.  She  certainly  had  de- 
ceived herself. 

She  could  not  believe  that  she  was  going  to  marry 
Owen.  She  felt  that  it  was  not  to  be,  and  before  the  pre- 
sentiment her  soul  paused.  She  asked  herself  why  she  felt 
that  it  was  not  to  be.  There  was  no  reason;  but  she  felt 
quite  clear  on  the  point,  and  could  not  combat  the  clear 
conviction.  She  began  thinking  the  obvious  drama — Owen 
discovering  her  with  Ulick,  declining  ever  to  see  her  again, 
her  suicide  or  his,  etc.  But  she  could  not  believe  that  Owen 
would  decline  ever  to  see  her  again  even  if — but  she  was  not 
going  to  go  wrong  with  Ulick,  there  was  no  use  supposing 
such  things.  And  again  her  thoughts  paused,  and  like 
things  frightened  by  the  dark,  withdrew  silently,  not  dar- 
ing to  look  further. 

She  met  Ulick  every  night  at  the  theatre,  and  she  had 
him  t<>  >it  with  her  in  her  drcs^incr-room  during  the  en- 
tr'actes. .  .  .  She  remembered  the  pleasure  she  had  taken 


EVELYN  INNES.  261 

in  these  conversations,  and  the  strange,  whirling  impulse 
which  drew  them  all  the  while  closer,  until  they  dreaded 
the  touching  of  their  knees.  She  had  taken  him  back  in 
the  carriage  and  he  had  kissed  her;  she  had  allowed  him  to 
kiss  her  the  other  night,  and  she  knew  that  if  she  were 
alone  with  him  again  she  would  not  be  able  to  resist  the 
temptation.  Her  thoughts  turned  a  little,  and  she  con- 
sidered what  her  life  would  be  if  she  were  to  yield  to  Ulick. 
Her  life  would  become  a  series  of  subterfuges,  and  in  a 
flash  of  thought  she  saw  how,  after  spending  the  after- 
noon with  Ulick,  she  would  come  home  to  find  Owen  wait- 
ing for  her.  He  would  suspect  and  question  her.  He 
would  say,  give  me  your  word  of  honour  that  Ulick  Dean 
is  not  your  lover,  and  she  heard  herself  pledge  her  word 
in  a  lie,  and  the  lie  would  have  to  be  repeated  again  and 
again. 

Until  she  had  met  Ulick,  she  had  not  seen  a  man  for 
years  whose  thoughts  ranged  above  the  gross  pleasure  of 
the  moment,  the  pleasure  of  eating,  of  drinking,  of  love- 
making  .  .  .  and  she  was  growing  like  those  people.  The 
other  night  at  dinner  at  the  Savoy  she  had  looked  round 
the  table  at  the  men's  faces,  some  seven  or  eight,  varying  in 
age  from  twenty-four  to  forty-eight,  and  she  had  said  to 
herself,  "  Not  one  of  these  men  has  done  anything  worth 
doing,  not  one  has  even  tried."  Looking  at  the  man  of 
twenty-four,  she  had  said  to  herself,  "He  will  do  all  the 
man  of  forty-eight  has  done — the  same  dinners,  the  same 
women,  the  same  racecourses,  the  same  shooting,  the  same 
tireless  search  after  amusement,  the  same  life  unlit  by  any 
ideal."  She  was  no  better,  Owen  was  no  better.  There  was 
no  hope  for  either  of  them?  He  had  surrounded  her  with 
his  friends,  and  she  thought  of  the  invitations  ahead  of  her. 
Her  profession  of  an  opera  singer  chained  her  to  this  life. 
.  .  .  She  felt  that  a  miracle  would  have  to  happen  to  extri- 
cate her  from  the  social  mire  into  which  she  was  sinking, 
sinking. 

To  give  up  Ulick  would  only  make  matters  worse.  He 
was  the  plank  she  clung  to  in  the  shipwreck  of  all  her 
convictions.  She  could  not  tell  how  or  why,  but  the  con- 
viction was  overpowering  that  she  could  not  give  him  up. 
Happen  what  might  happen,  she  must  see  him.  If  Owen 
were  to  go  for  a  sea  voyage.  ...  In  three  or  four  months 


262  EVELYN  INNES. 

she  would  have  acquired  that  something  which  he  could 
give  her  and  which  was  necessary  to  complete  her  soul. 
She  seemed  to  be  quite  certain  on  this  point,  and  she  lay 
back  in  the  brougham  lost  in  vague  wonderment.  Her 
thoughts  sank  still  deeper,  and  thoughts  came  to  her  that 
had  never  come  before,  that  she  had  never  dared  to  think 
before.  Even  if  she  were  not  done  with  Ulick  when  Owen 
returned,  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  could  make  them  and 
herself  very  happy;  they  both  seemed  necessary  to  her 
happiness,  to  her  fulfilment;  and  in  her  dream,  for  she 
was  not  responsible  for  her  thoughts,  the  enjoyment  of  this 
double  love  seemed  to  her  natural  and  beautiful.  .  .  . 

But  she  awoke  from  her  dream  frightened,  and  feeling 
like  one  who  has  lost  the  clue  which  was  to  lead  her  out 
of  the  labyrinth. 

Instead  of  sending  the  footman  to  tell  Lady  Duckle 
that  the  carriage  was  waiting,  Evelyn  got  out  and  went 
up  to  the  drawing-room. 

"  I'm  sorry  to  have  kept  you  waiting,  Olive,  but  I  can't 
go  with  you.  Tell  Lady  Ascott  I  am  very  sorry.  Good- 
night, I'm  going  to  my  room." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  Evelyn,  not  going  .  .  .  and  now  that 
you're  dressed." 

Evelyn  allowed  herself  to  be  persuaded.  If  she  went 
to  bed  now  she  would  not  sleep.  She  went  to  the  ball  with 
Lady  Duckle,  and  as  she  went  round  in  the  lancers,,  giving 
her  hand  first  to  one  and  then  to  the  other,  she  heard  a 
voice  crying  within  her,  "  Why  are  you  doing  these  things  ? 
They  don't  interest  you  at  all." 


XXII. 

"ETERNAL  night,  oh,  lovely  night,  oh,  holy  night  of 
love."  Rapture  succeeded  rapture,  and  the  souls  of  the  lov- 
ers rose  nearer  to  the  surface  of  life.  In  a  shudder  of  sil- 
ver chords  he  saw  them  float  away  like  little  clouds  towards 
the  low  rim  of  the  universe. 

But  at  that  moment  of  escape  reality  broke  in  upon  the 
dream.  Melot  had  betrayed  them,  and  Ulick  heard  King 


EVELYN  INNES.  263 

Mark's  noble  and  grave  reproaches  like  a  prophecy,  "  Thou 
wert  my  friend  and  didst  deceive  me,"  he  sang,  and  his 
melancholy  motive  seemed  to  echo  like  a  cry  along  the 
shore  of  Ulick's  own  life.  Amid  calm  and  mysteriously 
exalted  melodies,  expressive  of  the  terror  and  pathos  of  fate 
fulfilled,  Tristan's  resolve  took  shape,  and  as  he  fell  mor- 
tally wounded,  the  melancholy  Mark  motive  was  heard 
again,  and  again  Ulick  asked  what  meaning  it  might  have 
for  him.  He  heard  the  applause,  loud  in  the  stalls,  grow- 
ing faint  as  it  rose  tier  above  tier.  Baskets  of  flowers, 
wreaths  and  bouquets  were  thrown  from  the  boxes  or 
handed  up  from  the  orchestra,  the  curtain  was  rung  up 
again,  and  her  name  was  called  from  different  parts  of  the 
theatre.  And  when  the  curtain  was  down  for  the  last 
time,  he  saw  her  in  the  middle  of  the  stage  talking  to 
Tristan  and  Brangane.  The  garden  scene  was  being  car- 
ried away,  and  to  escape  from  it  Evelyn  took  Tristan's 
hand  and  ran  to  the  spot  where  Ulick  was  standing.  She 
loosed  the  hand  of  her  stage  lover,  and  dropping  a  bouquet, 
held  out  two  small  hands  to  Ulick  covered  with  violet 
powder.  The  hallucination  of  the  great  love  scene  was 
still  in  her  eyes;  it  still,  he  could  see,  surged  in  her  blood. 
She  had  nearly  thrown  herself  into  his  arms,  seemed  re- 
gardless of  those  around;  she  seemed  to  have  only  eyes  for 
him ;  he  heard  her  say  xinder  her  breath,  "  That  music  mad- 
dens me,"  then  with  sudden  composure,  but  looking  at  him 
intently,  she  asked  him  to  come  upstairs  with  her. 

For  the  last  few  days  he  had  been  engaged  in  prediction, 
and  last  night  he  had  been  visited  by  dreams,  the  signifi- 
cance of  which  he  could  not  doubt.  But  his  reading  of  her 
horoscope  had  been  incomplete,  or  else  he  had  failed  to 
understand  the  answers.  That  he  was  a  momentous  event 
in  her  life  seemed  clear,  yet  all  the  signs  were  set  against 
their  marriage;  but  what  was  happening  had  been  revealed 
— that  he  should  stand  with  her  in  a  room  where  the  car- 
pet was  blue,  and  they  were  there;  that  the  furniture 
should  be  of  last  century,  and  he  examined  the  cabinets 
in  the  corners,  which  were  satin-wood  inlaid  with  delicate 
traceries,  and  on  the  walls  were  many  mirrors  and  gold 
and  mahogany  frames. 

"  Merat !  "  The  maid  came  from  the  dressing-room. 
"  You  have  some  friends  in  front.  You  can  go  and  sit 


264  EVELYN  INNES. 

with  them.  I  sha'n't  want  you  till  the  end."  When  the 
door  closed,  their  eyes  met,  and  they  trembled  and  were  in 
dread.  "  Come  and  sit  by  me."  She  indicated  his  place 
by  her  side  on  the  sofa.  "  We  are  all  alone.  Talk  to  me. 
How  did  I  sing  to-night  ?  " 

"  Never  did  the  music  ever  mean  so  much  as  it  did  to- 
night," he  said,  sitting  down. 

"What  did  it  mean?" 

"  Everything.  All  the  beauty  and  the  woe  of  existence 
were  in  the  music  to-night." 

Their  thoughts  wandered  from  the  music,  and  an  effort 
was  required  to  return  to  it. 

"  Do  you  remember,"  she  said,  with  a  little  gasp  in  her 
voice,  "  how  the  music  sinks  into  the  slumber  motive, 
*  Hark,  beloved ; '  then  he  answers,  '  Let  me  die '  ?  " 

"  Yes,  and  with  the  last  note  the  undulating  tune  of  the 
harps  begin  in  the  orchestra.  Brangane  is  heard  warning 
them." 

They  sat  looking  at  each  other.  In  sheer  desperation 
she  said — 

"  And  that  last  phrase  of  all,  when  the  souls  of  the  lov- 
ers seemed  to  float  away." 

"  Over  the  low  rim  of  the  universe — like  little  clouds." 

"And  then?" 

He  tried  to  speak  of  his  ideas,  but  he  could  not  collect 
his  thoughts,  and  after  a  few  sentences  he  said,  "  I  cannot 
talk  of  these  things." 

The  room  seemed  to  sway  and  cloud,  and  her  arms  to 
reach  out  instinctively  to  him,  and  she  would  have  fallfii 
into  his  arms  if  he  had  not  suddenly  asked  her  what  had 
been  decided  at  Sir  Owen  Asher's. 

"  Let  me  kiss  you,  Evelyn,"  he  said,  "  or  I  shall  go  mad." 

"  No,  Ulick,  this  is  not  nice  of  you.  I  shall  not  be  able 
to  ask  you  to  my  room  again." 

lie  let  go  her  hand,  and  she  said — 

"  I'm  not  going  to  marry  Sir  Owen,  but  I  must  not  let 
you  kiss  me." 

"  But  you  must,  Evelyn,  you  must." 

"Why  must  I?" 

"  Do  you  not  feel  that  it  is  to  be? " 

"What  is  to  be?" 

"I  do  not  know  what,  but  I  have  been  drawn  towards 


EVELYN  INNES.  265 

you  so  long  a  while — long  before  I  saw  you,  ever  since  I 
heard  your  name,  the  moment  I  saw  that  old  photograph  in 
the  music-room,  I  knew." 

"What  did  you  know?" 

"  When  I  heard  your  name  it  called  up  an  image  in  my 
mind,  and  that  image  has  never  wholly  left  me — it  comes 
back  often  like  a  ghost." 

"  When  you  Avere  thinking  of  something  different  ?  " 

"  I  am  your  destiny,  or  one  of  your  destinies." 

Her  eyes  were  fixed  eagerly  upon  him ;  his  darkness  and 
the  mysteries  he  represented  attracted  her,  and  she  even 
felt  she  could  follow.  At  the  same  moment  his  eyes  seemed 
the  most  beautiful  in  the  world,  and  she  desired  him  to 
make  love  to  her.  While  enticing  she  resisted  him,  now 
more  feebly,  and  when  he  let  go  her  hands  she  sat  looking 
at  him,  wondering  how  she  was  to  get  through  the  evening 
without  kissing  him.  .  .  .  She  spoke  to  him  about  his 
opera.  He  asked  her  if  she  were  going  to  sing  it,  and  she 
looked  at  him  with  vague,  uncertain  eyes.  He  said  he 
knew  she  never  would.  She  asked  him  why  he  thought  so, 
and  again  a  great  longing  bent  him  towards  her.  She 
withdrew  her  hands  and  face  from  his  lips,  and  they  had 
begun  to  talk  of  other  things  when  he  perceived  her  face 
close  to  his.  Unable  to  resist  he  kissed  her  cheek,  fearing 
that  she  would  order  him  from  the  room.  But  at  the  in- 
stant of  the  touching  of  his  lips,  she  threw  her  arms  about 
his  neck. 

"  Dearest,  dearest,"  he  said,  raising  himself  to  look 
at  her. 

"  Ulick,  Ulick,"  she  said,  "  let  me  kiss  you,  I've  longed 
such  a  while." 

He  thought  he  had  never  seen  so  radiant  a  face.  What 
disguise  had  fallen?  And  looking  at  her,  he  strove  to  dis- 
cover the  woman  who  had  denied  him  so  often.  This  new 
woman  seemed  made  all  of  light  and  love  and  transport, 
the  woman  of  all  his  divinations,  the  being  the  old  photo- 
graph in  the  old  music-room  had  warned  him  of,  the  being 
that  the  voice  of  his  destiny  had  told  him  he  was  to  meet. 
And  as  they  stood  by  the  fireplace  looking  into  each  other's 
eyes,  he  gradually  became  aware  of  his  happiness.  It  broke 
in  his  heart  with  a  thrill  and  shiver  like  an  exquisite  dawn, 
opal  and  rose;  the  brilliancy  of  her  eyes,  the  rapture  of  her 


266  EVELYN  INNES. 

face,  the  magnetic  stirring  of  the  little  gold  curls  along  her 
forehead  were  so  wonderful  that  he  feared  her  as  an  en- 
chanter fears  the  spirit  he  has  raised.  Like  one  who  has 
suddenly  chanced  on  the  hilltop,  he  gazed  on  the  prospect, 
believing  it  all  to  be  his.  They  stood  gazing  into  each 
other's  eyes  too  eager  to  speak,  and  when  she  called  his 
name  he  remembered  the  legended  forest,  and  replied  with 
the  song  of  the  bird  that  leads  Siegfried  to  Brunnhilde. 
She  laughed,  and  sang  the  next  two  bars,  and  then  seemed 
to  forget  everything. 

"  Dearest,  of  what  are  you  thinking  ?  " 

"  Only  if  I  ever  shall  kiss  you  again,  Ulick." 

"  You  will  always  kiss  me !  " 

She  did  not  answer,  and,  frightened  by  her  irresponsive 
eyes,  he  said — 

"  But,  Evelyn,  you  must  love  me,  me — only  me ;  you 
will  never  see  him  again  ?  " 

She  did  not  answer,  and  when  he  spoke,  his  voice 
trembled. 

"  But  it  is  impossible  you  can  ever  marry  him  now." 

"  I  am  not  going  to  marry  Owen." 

"  You  told  him  so  the  other  night  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  told  him,  or  very  nearly,  that  I  could  not  marry 
him." 

"  You  cannot  marry  him,  you  love  me.  .  .  .  But  why 
don't  you  answer.  What  are  you  thinking  of? " 

"  Only  of  you,  dear.  .  .  .  Let  me  kiss  you  again,"  and 
in  the  embrace  he  forgot  for  the  moment  the  inquietude 
her  answer  had  caused  him. 

"  That  is  my  call,"  she  said.  "  How  am  I  to  sing  the 
Liebestod  after  all  this  ?  How  does  it  begin  ?  " 

Ulick  sang  the  opening  phrase,  and  she  continued  the 
music  for  some  bars. 

"  I  hope  I  shall  get  through  it  all  right.  Then,"  she 
said,  "  we  shall  go  home  together  in  the  brougham." 

At  that  moment  a  knock  was  heard,  and  Merat  entered. 
"  Mademoiselle,  you  have  no  time  to  lose." 

The  call  boy's  voice  was  heard  on  the  stairs,  and  Eve- 
lyn hastened  away.  Ulick  followed,  and  the  first  thing  he 
heard  when  he  got  on  the  stage  was  Tristan's  death  mo- 
tive. He  listened,  not  so  much  to  the  music  i;  -  if  as  to 
its  occult  significance  regarding  Evelyn  and  himself.  And 


EVELYN  INNES.  267 

as  Isolde's  grief  changed  from  wild  lament  for  sensual  de- 
light to  a  resigned  and  noble  prayer,  the  figure  of  ecstasy 
broke  with  the  sound  as  of  wings  shaking,  and  Ulick  seemed 
to  witness  a  soul's  transfiguration.  He  watched  it  rising  in 
several  ascensions,  like  a  lark's  flight.  For  an  instant  it 
seemed  to  float  in  some  divine  consummation,  then,  like  the 
bird,  to  suddenly  quench  in  the  radiance  of  the  sky.  The 
harps  wept  farewell  over  the  bodies  of  the  lovers,  then  all 
was  done,  and  he  stood  at  the  wings  listening  to  the  ap- 
plause. She  came  to  him  at  once,  as  soon  as  the  curtain 
was  down. 

"How  did  I  sing  it?" 

"  As  well  as  ever." 

"  But  you  seem  sad ;  what  is  it  ?  " 

"  It  seemed  to  mean  something — something,  I  cannot 
tell  what,  something  to  do  with  us." 

"  No,"  she  said,  looking  at  him.  "  I  was  only  thinking 
of  the  music.  Wait  for  me,  dear,  I  shall  not  keep  you 
long." 

He  walked  up  and  down  the  stage,  and  in  his  hand  was 
a  wreath  that  some  admirer  had  kept  for  the  last.  For 
excitement  he  could  hardly  bid  the  singers  good-night  as 
they  passed  him.  Now  it  was  Tristan,  now  Brangane, 
now  one  of  the  chorus.  The  question  raged  within  him, 
Was  it  fated  that  she  should  marry  him?  So  far  as  he 
understood  the  omens  she  would  not;  but  the  readings  were 
obscure,  and  his  will  threw  itself  out  in  opposition  to  the 
influence  of  Sir  Owen.  But  he  was  not  certain  that  that 
was  the  direction  whence  the  danger  was  coming.  He 
could  only  exert,  however,  his  will  in  that  direction.  At 
last  he  saw  her  coming  down  the  steep  stairs,  wrapped  in 
a  white  opera  cloak.  They  walked  in  silence — she  all  rap- 
ture, but  his  happiness  already  clouded.  The  brougham 
was  so  full  of  flowers  that  they  could  hardly  find  place  for 
themselves.  She  drew  him  closer,  and  said — 

"  What  is  the  matter,  dear  ?     Am  I  not  nice  to  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Evelyn,  you're  an  enchantment.     Only " 

"  Only  what,  dear." 

"  I  fear  our  future.  I  fear  I  shall  lose  you.  All  has 
come  true  so  far,  the  end  must  happen." 

She  drew  his  arm  about  her  waist,  and  laid  his  face  on 
her  bare  shoulder. 


268  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  Let  there  be  no  foreboding.     Live  in  the  present." 

"  The  future  is  too  near  us.  Say  you'll  marry  me,  or 
else  I  shall  lose  you  altogether.  It  is  the  one  influence  on 
our  side." 

She  was  born,  he  said,  under  two  great  influences,  but 
each  could  be  modified;  one  might  be  widened,  the  other 
lessened,  and  both  modifications  might  finally  resolve  into 
her  destiny.  So  far  as  he  could  read  her  future,  it  centred 
in  him  or  another.  That  other,  he  was  sure,  was  not  Sir 
Owen,  nor  was  it  himself,  he  thought;  for  when  she  and 
he  had  met  in  the  theatre,  she  had  experienced  no  dread, 
but  he  had  dreaded  her,  recognising  her  as  his  destiny.  He 
had  even  recognised  her  as  Evelyn  Innes  before  she  had 
been  pointed  out  to  him. 

"  But  you  had  seen  my  photograph  ?  " 

"  But  it  was  not  by  your  photograph  that  I  knew  you." 

"  And  you  knew  that  I  should  care  for  you  ?  " 

"  I  knew  that  something  had  to  happen.  But  you  did 
not  feel  that  I  was  your  destiny.  You  said  you  experi- 
enced no  dread,  but  when  you  met  Sir  Owen  did  you  ex- 
perience none  ? " 

"  I  suppose  I  did.  I  was  afraid  of  him.  At  first  I  think 
I  hated  him." 

"  Ah,  Evelyn,  we  shall  not  marry — it  is  not  our  fate. 
You  see  that  you  cannot  say  you  will  marry  me.  Another 
fate  is  beckoning  you." 

"  Who  is  it  who  beckons  me  ?  Have  I  already  met 
him?" 

He  fell  to  dreaming  again,  and  Evelyn  asked  him  vainly 
to  describe  this  other  man. 

"  Why  are  you  singing  that  melancholy  Mark  motive  ? " 

"  I  did  not  know  I  was  singing  it."  He  returned  to  his 
dream  again,  but  starting  from  it,  he  seized  her  hands. 

"  Evelyn,  he  said,  "  we  must  marry ;  a  reason  obliges 
us.  Have  you  not  thought  of  it  ?  "  And  then,  as  if  he  had 
not  noticed  that  she  had  not  answered  his  question,  he  said, 
"  On  your  father's  account,  if  he  should  ever  know.  Think 
what  my  position  is.  I  have  betrayed  my  friend.  That  is 
why  the  Mark  motive  has  been  singing  in  my  head.  Eve- 
lyn, you  must  say  yoxi  will  marry  me.  We  must  marry 
at  once,  for  your  father's  sake.  I  have  betrayed  him,  my 
best  friend.  ...  I  have  acted  worse  than  that  other  man." 


EVELYN  INNES.  269 

"  Ulick,  dear,  open  the  window ;  the  scent  of  these 
flowers  is  overpowering.  .  .  .  That  is  better.  Throw  some 
of  those  bouquets  into  the  street.  We  might  give  them  to 
those  poor  men,  they  might  be  able  to  sell  them.  .  .  .  Tell 
the  coachman  to  stop." 

The  chime  of  destiny  sounded  clearer  than  ever  in 
their  ears ;  it  seemed  as  if  they  could  almost  catch  the  tune, 
and  with  a  convulsive  movement  Evelyn  drew  her  lover  to- 
wards her. 

"  Every  hour  threatens  us,"  he  said.  "  Can  you  not 
hear?  Do  not  go  to  Park  Lane — Park  Lane  threatens; 
your  friend  Lady  Duckle  threatens.  I  see  nothing  but 
threats  and  menaces;  all  are  leagued  against  us." 

"  Dearest,  we  cannot  spend  the  night  driving  about 
London." 

He  sighed  on  his  mistress's  shoulder.  She  threw  his 
black  hair  from  his  forehead. 

"  There  is  no  hope.  We  shall  be  separated,  scattered 
to  different  winds." 

"  Why  do  you  think  that  ?  How  do  you  know  these 
things,  Ulick?" 

"  Evelyn,  in  losing  you  I  lose  the  principle  of  my  life, 
but  you  will  lose  nothing  in  losing  me.  So  it  is  written. 
But  you  are  not  listening;  I  am  wearying  you;  you're 
clinging  to  the  present,  knowing  that  you  will  soon  lose  it." 

She  threw  herself  upon  him,  and  kissed  him  as  if  she 
would  annihilate  destiny  on  his  lips,  and  until  they  reached 
Park  Lane  there  was  no  future,  only  a  delirious  present  for 
both  of  them. 

"  I  won't  ask  you  in ;  I  am  tired.  Good-bye,  dearest ; 
good-bye.  I'll  write." 

"  Remember  that  my  time  is  short,"  and  there  was  a 
strange  accent  in  his  voice  which  she  did  not  hear  till  long 
after.  She  had  locked  herself  into  the  sensual  present,  and, 
lulled  in  happy  sensations  of  gratified  sense,  she  allowed 
Merat  to  undress  her.  She  thought  of  the  soft  luxury  of 
her  bed,  and  lay  down,  her  brain  full  of  floating  impressions 
of  flowers,  music  and  of  love. 


270  EVELYN  IXNES. 


xxm. 

AND  when  Merat  called  her  in  the  morning1,  she  was 
dreaming  of  love.  She  turned  over,  and,  closing  her  eyes, 
strove  to  continue  her  dream,  but  it  fled  like  moonshine 
from  her  memory,  and  was  soon  so  far  distant  that  she 
could  not  even  perceive  the  subject  of  it.  And  she  awoke 
in  spite  of  herself,  and  sat  up  in  bed  sipping  her  chocolate ; 
and  then  lay  back  upon  the  pillow  with  Ulick  for  the  inner 
circle  of  her  thought.  It  seemed  that  she  could  think  of 
him  for  hours;  the  romance  of  his  personality  carried  her 
on  and  on.  At  one  moment  she  dwelt  on  the  gold  glow  in 
his  dark  eyes,  the  paint-like  blackness  of  his  hair,  and  his 
long  thin  hands.  At  another  her  fancy  liked  to  evoke  his 
superstitions.  For  him  the  past,  present  and  future  were 
not  twain,  but  one  thing.  And  every  time  she  saw  him, 
she  was  more  and  more  interested.  Every  time  she  dis- 
covered something  new  in  him — he  did  not  exist  on  the 
surface  of  things,  but  deep  in  himself;  and  she  wondered 
if  she  would  ever  know  him. 

Her  thoughts  paused  a  moment,  and  then  she  remem- 
bered something  he  had  said.  It  had  struck  her  at  the  time, 
but  now  it  appeared  to  her  more  than  ever  interesting. 
Catholicism,  he  had  said,  had  not  fallen  from  him — he  had 
merely  learnt  that  it  was  only  part  of  the  truth;  he  had 
gone  further,  he  had  raised  himself  to  a  higher  spirituality. 
It  was  not  that  he  wanted  less,  but  more  than  Catholicism 
could  give  him.  In  religion,  as  in  art,  there  were  higher 
and  lower  states.  We  began  by  admiring  "  Faust,"  and 
went  on  to  Wagner,  hence  to  Beethoven  and  Palestrina. 
Catholicism  was  the  spiritual  fare  of  the  multitude;  there 
was  a  closer  communion  with  the  divine  essence.  She  had 
forgotten  what  came  next.  .  .  .  He  held  that  we  are  always 
warned  of  our  destiny  and  it  had  been  proved  that  in  the 
hypnotic  sleep,  when  the  pulse  of  life  was  weakest,  almost 
at  pause,  there  was  a  heightening  of  the  powers  of  vision 
and  hearing.  A  patient  whose  eyes  had  been  covered  with 
layers  of  cotton  wool  had  been  able  to  read  the  newspaper. 
Another  patient  had  been  able  to  tell  what  was  passing  in 
another  mind,  and  at  a  distance  of  a  mile.  The  only  ex- 
planation that  Charcot  could  give  of  this  second  experi- 


EVELYN  INNES.  271 

mcnt  was  that  the  knowledge  had  been  conveyed  through 
the  rustling  of  the  blood  in  the  veins,  which  the  hypnotic 
sIiM-p  had  enabled  the  patient  to  hear.  And  Ulick  sub- 
mitted that  this  scientific  explanation  was  more  incredible 
than  any  spiritual  one.  There  was  much  else.  There  was 
all  Ulick's  wonderful  talk  about  the  creation  of  things 
by  thought,  and  his  references  to  the  mysterious  Kabbala 
had  strangely  interested  her.  But  suddenly  she  remem- 
bered that  perchance  his  spiritualism  was  allied  to  the 
black  art  of  the  necromancers ;  and  her  Catholic  conscience 
was  mysteriously  affrighted,  and  she  experienced  the  attrac- 
tion of  terror.  Was  it  possible  that  he  believed  that  all  the 
accidents,  or  what  we  suppose  are  accidents,  have  been 
earned  in  a  preceding  life?  Did  he  really  believe  that 
lovers  may  tempt  each  other  life  after  life,  that  a  group  of 
people  may  come  together  again  ?  " 

"  Mademoiselle,  it  is  half-past  ten." 

"  Very  well,  Merat,  I  will  get  up.     I  will  ring  for  you 
when  I  have  had  my  bath." 

"  Lady  Duckle  has  gone  out,  and  will  not  be  home  for 
lunch." 

There  was  not  even  a  letter,  and  the  day  stretched  out 
before  her.  Ulick  might  call,  but  she  did  not  think  he 
would.  She  thought  of  a  visit  to  her  father,  but  some- 
thing held  her  back,  and  Dulwich  was  a  long  way.  After 
breakfast  she  went  to  the  piano  and  sang  some  of  Ulick's 
music ;  stopping  suddenly  in  the  middle  of  a  bar,  she 
thought  she  would  send  him  a  note  asking  him  to  come  to 
lunch.  But  what  should  she  do  till  two  o'clock  ?  it  was  now 
only  eleven.  Suddenly  it  struck  her  that  she  might  take  a 
hansom  and  go  and  see  him.  She  had  never  seen  his  rooms, 
and  to  visit  him  there  would  be  more  amusing  than  for 
him  to  come  to  Park  Lane;  and  she  imagined  his  sur- 
prise and  delight  at  seeing  her.  Her  thoughts  went  to  the 
frock  she  would  wear — a  new  one  had  come  home  yesterday 
— this  would  be  an  excellent  opportunity  to  wear  it.  She 
would  take  him  to  lunch  with  her  at  some  restaurant! 
She  was  in  excellent  humour.  Her  thoughts  amused  her, 
and  she  reflected  that  she  had  done  well  to  choose  the  pale 
shot  silk  with  green  shades  in  it.  It  was  trimmod  with 
black  lace,  and  she  selected  a  large  black  hat  with  black  os- 
tr'u'h  feathers  to  wear  with  it. 
18 


272  EVELYN  INNES. 

i 

And  seeing  the  people  in  the  streets  as  she  drove  past, 
she  wondered  if  they  were  as  happy  as  she  was.  She  specu- 
lated on  their  errands,  and  wondered  if  many  of  the  woimm 
were  going,  like  her,  to  their  lovers.  She  wondered  what 
their  lovers  were  like,  and  she  laughed  at  her  thoughts. 
Seeing  that  she  was  passing  through  a  very  mean  street,  she 
hoped  that  Ulick's  rooms  were  not  too  Bohemian,  and  felt 
relieved  when  she  found  that  the  street  she  dreaded  led 
into  a  square.  A  square,  she  reflected,  always  means  a 
certain  measure  of  respectability.  And  the  faded,  old- 
fashioned  neighbourhood  pleased  her.  Some  of  the  houses 
seemed  as  if  they  had  known  more  fashionable  days;  and 
the  square  exhaled  a  tender  melancholy;  it  suggested  a 
vision  of  dreamy  lives — lives  lived  in  ideas,  lives  of  stu- 
dents who  lived  in  books  unaware  of  the  externality  of 
things. 

But  the  cabman  could  not  find  the  number,  and  Evelyn 
impatiently  inquired  it  from  the  vagrant  children.  There 
were  groups  of  them  on  the  wide  doorstep,  and  Evelyn 
imagined  the  interior  of  the  house,  wide  passages,  gently- 
sloping  staircase,  its  heavy  banisters.  It  surprised  ami 
amused  her  to  find  that  she  had  imagined  it  quite  correct- 
ly; and  when  she  reached  the  landing  to  which  she  h:ul 
been  directed,  she  stopped,  hearing  his  voice.  lie  was  only 
talking  to  himself;  she  pushed  the  door  and  called  to  him. 

"  Oh,  it  is  you  ?  "  he  said ;  "  you  have  come  sooner  than 
I  expected." 

"  Then  you  expected  me,  Ulick  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  expected  you." 

"Expected  me  .  .  .  to-day!  But,  Ulick,  what  were  yon 
saying  when  I  came  in  ?  " 

"  Only  some  Kabbalistic  formula,"  he  replied,  quite 
naturally. 

"  But  you  don't  really  believe  in  such  superstitions,  and 
it  surely  is  very  wrong." 

lie  looked  at  her  incredulously,  as  he  might  at  some 

beautiful  apparition  likely  at  any  moment  to  vanish  from 

his  sight,   then  reverentially   drew   her   towards   him   :m<l 

•I  lier.     Her  hand  was  laid  on  his  shoulder,  and  in  a 

delicious  apprehension  she  stood  looking  at  him. 

"Where  shall  we  sit?" 

He  threw  some  books  and  papers  from  a  long  cane  chair, 


EVELYN  INNES.  273 

and  she  sat  down  in  it.  He  sat  on  the  arm,  and  then  tried 
to  talk. 

"  Let  me  take  your  hat." 

She  unpinned  it,  and  he  placed  it  on  the  piano. 

His  room  was  lighted  by  two  square  windows  looking 
on  the  open  space  in  front  of  the  square,  where  the  va- 
grant children  gathered  in  noisy  groups  round  a  dripping 
iron  fountain.  The  floor  was  covered  with  grey-green 
drugget,  and  near  the  fireplace,  drawn  in  front  of  the 
window,  was  a  large  oak  table  covered  with  papers  of  vari- 
ous kinds.  Against  the  end  wall  there  was  a  bookcase, 
and  there  were  shelves  filled  with  books.  There  were  two 
arm-chairs,  a  piano,  and  some  prints  of  Blake's  illustra- 
tions to  Dante  on  the  wall.  The  writing  table,  covered 
with  manuscript  music,  roused  Evelyn's  curiosity.  She 
glanced  down  a  page  of  orchestration,  and  then  picked  up 
the  first  pages  of  an  article,  and  having  read  them  she 
said — 

"  How  severe  you  are  in  your  articles.  You  are  gentler 
in  your  music,  more  like  yourself;  but  I  see  your  servant 
docs  not  waste  her  time  dusting  your  books  .  .  .  and  that 
is  your  bedroom,  may  I  see  it  ? " 

He  looked  at  her  abashed.  "  I  am  afraid  my  room  will 
seem  to  you  very  unluxurious.  I  have  read  of  prima 
donna's  bedrooms." 

But  the  bare  simplicity  of  the  room  did  not  displease 
her;  it  seemed  to  her  more  natural  to  sleep  in  a  low,  nar- 
row bed  like  this,  than  in  fine  linen  and  eider  down  quilts, 
and  she  liked  the  scant,  bleak  furniture,  the  two  chairs, 
the  iron  wash-hand  stand,  and  the  window  curtained  with 
a  bit  of  India  muslin.  They  stood  talking,  hardly  know- 
ing what  they  were  saying.  Her  eyes  embarrassed  him, 
and  she  stopped  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence. 

"  Now,  Ulick,"  she  said,  turning  towards  the  door,  "  I 
want  you  to  take  me  to  lunch.  We'll  go  to  the  Savoy." 

He  had  to  admit  he  had  not  sufficient  money.  Three 
shillings  and  sixpence  were  what  remained  until  he  received 
the  cheque  from  one  of  his  newspapers. 

"  But  I  am  not  going  to  have  you  pay  for  my  lunch, 
Ulick.  I  am  asking  you.  Be  nice,  don't  refuse;  what  does 
it  matter?  What  does  money  matter  to  me?  It  comes  in 
so  fast  that  I  don't  know  what  to  do  with  it." 


274  EVELYN  INNES. 

It  was  at  the  end  of  the  season,  and  there  were  not 
many  people  in  the  low-ceilinged  dining-room.  All  the 
waiters  knew  Evelyn,  and  she  was  conducted  ceremoniously 
to  a  table.  And  as  she  passed  up  the  room,  she  wondered 
what  was  being  thought  of  Ulick.  lie  was  so  different 
from  the  exquisite,  foppish  elegance  of  the  man  she  was 
usually  seen  with.  He  was  strange-looking,  but  Ulick  was 
as  distinguished  as  Owen,  only  the  distinction  was  of  an- 
other kind. 

He  always  remembered  how  at  the  end  of  lunch  she 
took  out  her  gold-knitted  purse,  and  emptied  its  contents 
on  the  tablecloth.  And  he  was  astonished  at  the  casualness 
with  which  she  spent  money  in  every  shop  that  caught  her 
fancy.  The  afternoon  included  a  visit  to  the  saddler's, 
where  she  had  to  make  inquiries  about  bits  and  bridles. 
She  called  at  two  jewellers,  where  she  had  left  things  to  be 
mended.  She  ordered  a  dozen  pair  of  boots,  and  purchased 
a  large  quantity  of  stationery  after  a  long  discussion  about 
dies,  stamps  and  monograms.  And  when  all  this  was 
finished,  she  proposed  they  should  have  tea  in  Kensington 
Gardens. 

Ulick  knew  very  little  of  London.  He  knew  Victoria 
Station,  for  he  took  the  train  there  to  Dulwich;  the  Strand, 
for  he  went  there  to  see  editors;  and  Bloomsbury,  because 
he  lived  there.  But  he  had  never  been  to  the  park,  and 
seemed  puzzled  when  Evelyn  spoke  of  the  Serpentine  and 
the  round  pond.  It  was  surprising,  he  said,  to  find  forest 
groves  in  the  heart  of  London.  They  had  tea  at  a  little 
table  set  beneath  huge  branches,  and  after  tea  they  sat  on 
a  sloping  lawn  facing  the  long  water.  She  wondered  if 
he  were  aware  of  the  beauty  of  things,  the  wonder  of  life, 
the  blue  of  the  sky,  the  romance  of  the  clouds.  But  she 
was  bent  on  hearing  of  the  invisible  world  apparently  :il- 
ways  so  visible  to  him,  and  she  tried  to  win  his  thoughts 
away  from  the  park,  and  to  lead  him  to  speak  of  his 
visions.  She  did  not  know  if  she  believed  in  them,  but 
she  pined  for  exaltation,  for  an  unloosening  of  the  ma- 
terialistic terror  in  which  Owen  had  tied  her,  and  in  this 
mood  Ulick's  dreams  floated  up  in  her  life,  like  clouds  in 
n  cloudless  sky.  He  sat  talking,  lost  in  his  dreams,  and 
she  sat  listening  like  one  enchanted.  Now  (heir  talk  had 
strayed  from  the  descriptions  of  visions  beheld  by  folk 


EVELYN  INNES.  275 

who  lived  in  back  parlours  in  Bloomsbury  squares  to  the 
philosophy  of  his  own  belief;  and  she  smiled  for  delight 
at  seeing  the  Druid  in  him.  The  ancient  faiths  had  sur- 
vived in  him,  and  it  seemed  natural  and  even  right  that 
he  should  believe  that  after  death  men  pass  to  the  great 
plain  of  the  land  over  the  sea,  the  land  of  the  children 
of  Dana.  Men  lived  there,  he  said,  for  a  while,  enjoying 
all  their  desires,  and  at  the  end  of  this  period  they  are 
born  again.  Man  lives  between  two  desires — his  desire  of 
spiritual  peace  and  happiness,  and  his  desire  of  earthly 
experience. 

"  Oh,  how  true  that  is !  " 

"  Man's  desire  of  earthly  experience,"  Ulick  continued, 
"  draws  him  to  re-birth,  and  ke  is  born  into  a  form  that 
fits  his  nature  as  a  glove  fits  a  hand;  the  soul  of  a  war- 
rior passes  into  the  robust  form  of  a  warrior;  the  soul  of  a 
poet  into  the  most  sensitive  body  of  a  poet ;  so  you  see  how 
modern  science  has  only  robbed  the  myths  of  their  beauty." 

He  spoke  of  the  old  Irish  legend  of  Mongan  and  the 
Bard,  and  Evelyn  begged  of  him  to  tell  it  her. 

"  Mongan,"  he  said,  "  had  been  Fin  MacCool  two 
hundred  years  before.  When  he  was  Fin  he  had  beeii 
present  at  the  death  of  a  certain  king.  The  Bard  was 
singing  before  Mongan,  and  mis-stated  the  place  of  the 
king's  death.  Mongan  corrected  him,  and  the  Bard  was 
so  incensed  at  the  correction  that  he  threatened  to  satirise 
the  kingdom  so  that  it  should  become  barren.  And  he 
would  only  agree  to  withhold  his  terrible  satire  if  Mongaii 
would  give  him  his  wife." 

"Mrs.  Mongan?" 

"  Yes,  just  so,"  TJlick  replied,  laughing.  "  Mongan 
asked  for  three  days'  delay  to  consider  the  dreadful  dilem- 
ma in  which  the  Bard's  threat  had  placed  him.  And  dur- 
ing that  time  Mongan  sat  with  his  wife  consoling  her, 
saying,  '  A  man  will  come  to  us,  his  feet  are  already  upon 
the  western  sea.'  And  at  the  time  when  the  Bard  stood  up 
to  claim  the  wife,  a  strange  warrior  came  into  the  en- 
campment, holding  a  barbless  spear.  He  said  that  he  was 
Caolte,  one  of  Fin's  famous  warriors,  that  the  king  whose 
place  of  death  was  in  dispute  was  killed  where  Mongan 
had  said,  llmt  if  they  dug  down  into  the  earth  they  would 
find  the  spear-head,  that  it  would  fit  the  shaft  he  held 


276  EVELYN  INNES. 

in  his  hand,  that  it  was  the  spear-head  that  had  killed  the 
king." 

"  Go  on,  and  tell  me  some  more  stories.  I  love  to  listen 
to  you — you  are  better  than  any  play." 

And  she  wondered  if  he  were  indeed  an  ancient  Druid 
come  to  life  again,  and  that  the  instinct  of  the  ancient  rites 
lingered  in  him.  However  this  might  be,  he  could  answer 
all  her  questions,  and  she  was  much  interested  when  at  the 
end  of  another  tale  he  told  her  of  Blake's  visions  and  pro- 
phetic books.  She  knew  little  about  Blake,  and  listened  to 
Ulick's  account  of  his  visions  and  prophecies.  Evelyn 
thought  of  Owen,  and  to  escape  from  the  thought  she  spoke 
of  a  legend  which  TTlick  had  once  mentioned  to  her. 

"  You  did  not  tell  it  to  me,  only  the  end ;  the  very  last 
phrase  is  all  I  know  of  it,  '  and  the  further  adventures  of 
Bran  are  unknown.' " 

"  Bran,  the  son  of  Feval,  is  the  story  of  a  man  who  went 
to  the  great  plain,  the  land  over  the  sea,  the  land  of  the 
children  of  Dana.  He  was  sitting  in  his  court  when  a 
beautiful  woman  appeared,  and  she  told  him  to  man  his 
ship  and  sail  to  the  land  of  the  Gods,  the  land  where  no 
one  dies,  where  blossoms  fall  for  ever.  ...  I  have  forgot- 
ten the  song,  what  a  wonderful  song  it  is!  Ah,  I  remem- 
ber, '  Where  music  is  not  born,  but  continually  is  there, 
where '  .  .  .  no,  I  can't  remember  it.  Bran  sails  away,  and 
after  sailing  for  some  days  he  meets  a  man  driving  a  char- 
iot over  the  waves.  This  man  says,  '  To  my  eyes  you  are 
sailing  over  the  tops  of  a  forest,'  and  in  many  other  ways 
makes  clear  to  him  that  all  things  are  but  appearances,  and 
change  with  the  eye  that  sees  them." 

"  How  true  that  is !  At  Lady  Ascott's  ball  I  was  enjoy- 
ing myself,  delighted  with  the  brilliancy  of  the  dresses,  thn 
jewellery  and  the  flowers,  and  in  a  moment  they  all  passed 
away;  I  only  saw  a  little  triviality  and  heard  a  voice  cry- 
ing within  me, '  Why  are  you  here,  why  are  you  doing  these 
things  ?  This  ball  means  nothing  to  you.'  " 

"That  was  the  voice  of  your  destiny;  your  life  is  no 
longer  with  Owen." 

"With  whom  is  it,  Ulick?  Tell  me,  you  can  see  into 
the  future." 

"  I  know  no  more  than  I  told  you  last  night.  I  ain  your 
destiny  for  to-day." 


EVELYN  INNES.  277 

They  looked  at  each  other  in  fear  and  sadness — and 
though  both  knew  the  truth,  neither  could  speak  it. 

"  Then  what  happens  to  Bran,  the  son  of  Feval  ?  " 

"  Bran  visits  many  islands  of  many  delights,  but  wish- 
ing to  see  his  native  land  once  more,  he  sails  away,  but  the 
people  of  those  islands  have  told  him  that  he  must  not  set 
feet  on  any  earthly  shore,  or  he  will  perish.  So  he  sails 
close  to  his  native  land,  but  does  not  leave  the  ship.  The 
inhabitants  ask  him  who  he  is;  he  tells  them,  and  they  re- 
ply, '  The  voyage  of  Bran,  the  son  of  Feval,  is  among  our 
most  ancient  stories.'  One  man  swims  ashore,  and  the 
moment  his  foot  touches  earth  he  becomes  a  heap  of  dust. 
Bran  sails  away,  and  the  story  ends  with  the  phrase  which 
you  already  know — '  The  further  adventures  of  Bran  are 
unknown.' " 

"  How  true !  how  true !  the  stories  of  our  lives  are 
known  up  to  a  certain  point,  and  our  further  adventures 
are  unknown." 

They  were  glad  of  a  little  silence,  and  Evelyn  sat  striv- 
ing to  read  her  own  destiny  in  the  legend.  Bran  visited 
many  islands  of  many  delights,  but  when  he  wished  to 
return  to  his  native  land  he  was  told  that  he  must  do  no 
more  than  to  sail  along  its  coast,  that  if  he  set  foot  on  any 
earthly  shore  he  would  perish.  But  what  did  this  story 
mean,  what  meaning  had  it  for  her  ?  She  had  visited  many 
islands  of  many  delights,  and  had  come  home  again !  What 
meaning  had  this  story  for  her?  why  had  she  remembered 
the  last  phrase?  why  had  she  been  impelled  to  ask  Ulick 
to  tell  her  this  story?  She  looked  at  him — he  sat  with  his 
eyes  on  the  ground  absorbed  in  thought,  but  she  did  not 
think  he  was  thinking  of  the  legend,  but  of  how  soon  he 
would  lose  her,  and  she  shuddered  in  the  warm  summer 
evening  as  from  a  sudden  chill.  It  was  now  nearly  seven 
o'clock — she  would  soon  have  to  go  home  to  dress  for  din- 
ner. They  were  dining  out,  she  and  Lady  Duckle,  and  she 
would  meet  once  more  Lady  Ascott,  Lady  Summersdean, 
those  people  whose  lives  she  had  begun  to  feel  had  no  fur- 
ther concern  for  her. 

The  hour  was  inexpressibly  calm  and  alluring;  the  blue 
pallor  of  the  sky  and  the  fading  of  the  sunset  behind  the 
tall  Bayswater  houses  raised  the  soul  with  a  tingling  sense 
of  exalted  happiness  and  delicious  melancholy.  She  did 


278  EVELYN  INNES. 

not  ask  herself  if  she  loved* Ulick  better  than  Owen;  she 
only  knew  that  she  must  act  as  she  was  acting — that  the 
moment  had  not  come  when  she  could  escape  from  herself. 
They  walked  by  the  water's  edge,  their  souls  still  like  the 
water,  and  like  it,  full  of  calm  reflections.  They  were 
aware  of  the  evening's  sad  serenity,  and  the  little  strug- 
gling passions  of  their  lives.  Very  often  Nature  seemed 
on  the  very  point  of  whispering  her  secret,  but  it  escaped 
her  ears  like  an  echo  in  the  far  distance,  like  a  phantom 
that  disappears  in  the  mist. 

"  Will  you  come  and  see  me  to-morrow  ? "  he  asked 
suddenly. 

"  We  had  better  not  see  each  other  every  day,"  she  said ; 
"  still,  I  don't  see  there  would  be  any  harm  if  you  came  to 
see  me  in  the  afternoon." 

Her  conscience  drowsed  like  this  heavy,  somnolent  even- 
ing, and  a  red  moon  rose  behind  the  tall  trees. 

"  The  time  will  come,"  he  said,  "  when  you  will  hate  me, 
Evelyn." 

"  I  don't  think  I  shall  be  as  unjust  as  that.  Good-bye, 
dear,  the  afternoon  has  passed  very  pleasantly." 


XXIV. 

OWEN  h'ad  telegraphed  to  her  and  she  had  come  at  once. 
But  how  callous  and  unsympathetic  she  was!  If  people 
knew  what  she  was,  no  one  would  speak  to  her.  If  Own 
knew  that  she  had  desired  his  mother's  death.  .  .  .  But 
had  she?  She  had  only  thought  that,  if  Lady  Asher  wiv 
not  to  recover,  it  were  better  that  she  died  before  she,  Kv<- 
lyn,  arrived  at  Riversdale.  As  the  carriage  drove  through 
the  woods  she  noticed  that  they  were  empty  and  silent, 
save  for  the  screech  of  one  incessant  bird,  and  she  thought 
of  the  dead  woman's  face,  and  contrasted  it  with  the  sum- 
mer time. 

The  house  stood  on  the  side  of  some  rising  ground  in 
the  midst  of  the  given  park.  Cattle  were  grazing  dreamily 
in  the  grass,  which  grew  rich  and  long  about  u  string  of 


EVELYN  INNES.  279 

ponds,  and  she  could  see  Owen  walking  under  the  colon- 
nade. As  the  carriage  came  round  the  gravel  space,  his 
eyes  sought  her  in  the  brougham,  and  she  knew  the  wild 
and  perplexed  look  on  his  face. 

"  No,  don't  let's  go  into  the  house  unless  you're  tired," 
he  said,  and  they  walked  down  the  drive  under  the  branches, 
making,  they  knew  not  why,  for  the  open  park.  "  This  is 
terrible,  isn't  it?  And  this  beautiful  summer's  day,  too, 
not  a  cloud  in  the  sky,  not  a  wind  in  all  the  air.  How 
peaceful  the  cattle  are  in  the  meadow,  and  the  swans  in  the 
pond.  But  we  are  unhappy.  Why  is  this?  You  say  that 
it  is  the  will  of  God.  That  is  no  answer.  But  you  think 
it  is?" 

Fearing  to  irritate  him,  she  did  not  speak,  but  he  would 
not  be  put  off,  and  she  said — 

"  Do  not  let  us  argue,  Owen,  dear.  Tell  me  about  it. 
It  was  quite  unexpected  ?  " 

"  She  had  been  in  ill  health,  as  you  know,  for  some 
time.  Let  us  go  this  way." 

He  led  her  through  the  shrubbery  and  through  the 
wicket  into  the  meadows  which  lay  under  the  terrace,  and, 
thinking  of  the  dead  woman,  she  wondered  at  the  strange, 
somnolent  life  of  the  cattle  in  the  meadows  and  the  swans 
on  the  pond.  The  willows,  as  if  exhausted  by  the  heat, 
seemed  to  bend  under  the  stream,  and  their  eyes  followed 
the  lines  of  the  woods  and  looked  into  the  burning  blue  of 
the  sky,  striving  to  read  the  secret  there.  A  rim  of  moist 
earth  under  their  feet,  and  above  their  heads  the  infinite 
blue!  The  stillness  of  the  summer  was  in  every  blade  of 
grass,  in  every  leaf,  and  the  pond  reflected  the  sky  and 
willows  in  hard,  immovable  reflections.  An  occasional  rip- 
ple of  the  water-fowl  in  the  reeds  impressed  upon  them 
the  mystery  of  Nature's  indifference  to  human  suffering. 

"  In  that  house  behind  that  colonnade  she  lies  dead. 
Good  God!  isn't  it  awful!  We  shall  never  see  her.  But 
you  think  we  shall  ?  " 

"  Owen,  dear,  let  us  avoid  all  discussion.  She  was  a 
good  woman.  She  was  very  good  to  me." 

"  I  haven't  told  you  that  it  was  by  her  wish  that  I 
sent  for  you.  She  wanted  to  ask  you  to  promise  to  marry 
me.  ...  I  told  her  that  I  had  asked  you,  and  that  in  a  way 
we  were  engaged.  I  could  not  say  more.  You  seemed  un- 


280  EVELYN  INNES. 

settled,  you  seemed  to  wish  to  get  out  of  your  promise — is 
not  that  so  ? " 

Evelyn  thought  of  the  scene  by  Lady  Asher's  bedside 
that  an  accident  had  saved  her  from.  Marriage  was  more 
than  ever  impossible.  What  should  she  have  said  if  Lady 
Asher  had  not  died  before  she  arrived  ?  The  dying  woman's 
eyes,  the  dying  woman's  voice !  Good  heavens !  what  would 
she  have  said?  But  she  had  considered  nothing.  After 
glancing  at  the  telegram,  she  had  told  Merat  to  pack  a  few 
clothes,  and  had  rushed  away.  She  pondered  the  various 
excuses  she  might  have  sent.  She  might  have  said  she  was 
not  in  when  the  telegram  came,  she  had  only  just  caught 
the  train  as  it  was;  if  she  had  not  got  the  telegram  before 
eleven  o'clock  she  would  have  been  safe.  But  all  that  was 
past  now,  Lady  Asher  had  died  before  she  arrived.  It 
were  better  that  she  had  died — anything  were  better  rather 
than  that  scene  should  have  taken  place;  for  she  could 
not  have  promised  to  marry  Owen.  What  would  she  have 
done?  Refused  while  looking  into  her  dying  eyes,  or  run 
out  of  the  room? 

"  You  don't  answer  me,  Evelyn." 

"  Owen,  don't  press  me.  Enough  has  been  said  on  that 
subject.  This  is  no  time  to  discuss  such  questions." 

"  But  it  is,  Evelyn — it  was  her  dearest  wish.  ...  Is  it 
then  impossible?  Have  you  entirely  ceased  to  care?" 

"  No,  Owen,  I'm  very  fond  of  you.  But  you  don't  really 
want  to  marry  me,  it  is  because  your  mother  wished  it." 

His  face  changed  expression,  and  she  knew  that  he  was 
not  certain  on  the  point  himself. 

"  Yes,  Evelyn,  I  do,  indeed  I  do;  "  and  convinced  for  the 
moment  that  what  he  said  was  true,  he  took  her  hands,  and 
looking  at  her  he  added,  "  It  was  her  wish,  and  if  what  you 
believe  be  true,  she  is  listening  now  from  behind  that  blue 
sky." 

Both  were  trembling,  and  while  the  swans  floated  by, 
they  considered  the  depth  of  blue  contained  in  the  sky.  He 
was  taken  with  a  little  dread,  and  was  surprised  to  find  iu 
himself  a  vague,  haunting  belief  in  the  possibility  of  an 
after  life.  Suddenly  his  self-consciousness  fell  from  him, 
was  merged  in  his  instinct  of  the  woman. 

"Evelyn,  if  I  don't  niim-.v  you  I  slmll  lose  you.  I  c:in- 
not  lose  you,  that  would  be  to  lose  everything.  I  don't  ask 


EVELYN  INNES.  281 

any  questions,  whether  you  like  Ulick  Dean,  nor  even  what 
your  relations  are.  I  only  want  to  know  if  you  will  marry 
me." 

He  read  in  her  eyes  that  the  tale  of  their  love  was 
ended,  and  heard  his  future  life  ring  hollow.  It  seemed 
strange  that  at  such  a  moment  the  serene  swans  should 
float  about  them,  that  the  water-fowl  should  move  in  and 
out  of  the  reeds,  and  that  the  green  park  and  the  cloudless 
sky  were  like  painted  paper. 

"  Then  everything  is  over,  everything  I  had  to  live  for, 
all  is  a  blank.  But  when  you  sent  me  away  before,  you  had 
to  take  me  back;  you're  not  a  woman  who  can  live  without 
a  lover." 

"  It  is  difficult,  I  know." 

"  What  has  come  between  us,  tell  me  ?  This  fellow 
Ulick  Dean  or  religious  scruples  ? " 

"  I  have  no  right  to  talk  about  religious  scruples." 

"  Then  it  is  this  man.  You  love  him,  you've  ceased  to 
care  for  me,  and  you  ask  me  to  barter  my  right  to  kiss  you, 
to  take  you  in  my  arms,  so  that  I  may  remain  your  friend. 
Why,  Evelyn,  have  you  got  tired  of  me  ? " 

"  But  I  have  not  got  tired  of  you,  Owen.  I  am  very 
fond  of  you." 

"  Yes,  but  yon  don't  care  any  more  for  me  to  make  love 
to  you." 

"  Of  course  it  is  not  the  same  as  it  was  in  the  begin- 
ning, but  there  is  affection." 

"  When  passion  is  dead,  all  is  dead,  the  rest  is  nothing." 

It  seemed  so  shameful  that  he  should  suffer  like  this, 
and  she  strove  to  rouse  herself  out  of  her  stony  determina- 
tion. She  was  like  one  upon  a  rampart;  she  could  see  the 
surrounding  country,  but  could  not  escape  to  it;  this  ram- 
part was  the  instinct,  in  which  Nature  had  shut  her  soul. 
But  she  could  not  bear  to  see  him  cry. 

"  Oh,  Evelyn,  this  cannot  be." 

Then,  feeling  that  the  reality  was  too  brutal,  she  yielded 
to  the  temptation  to  disguise  the  truth. 

"  I  don't  know  what  I  shall  do,  Owen ;  there  would  be 
no  use  making  promises." 

"  Then  you  do  love  me  a  little,  Evelyn  ?  " 

"Yes,  Owen,  you  must  never  doubt  that.  I  shall  al- 
ways be  fond  of  you;  remember  that,  whatever  happens." 


282  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  Yes,  I  know,  as  a  friend.  Look  round !  the  earth  and 
the  sky  are  quiet,  and  one  day  we  shall  be  quiet  too,  only 
that  is  sure." 

As  they  walked  towards  the  house,  their  self-conscious- 
ness rose  to  so  high  a  pitch  that  the  park  and  house  seemed 
to  them  like  a  thin  illusion,  a  sort  of  painted  paper  reality, 
which  might  fall  to  pieces  at  any  moment.  He  thought 
how  little  were  the  hours  between  the  present  moment  and 
the  moment  when  she  would  be  taken  from  him.  Whereas 
she  was  thinking  that  these  hours  would  never  pass.  She 
realised  the  long  hours  before  the  sunlight  waned.  She 
thought  of  their  lonely  dinner  and  their  evening  after  it. 
All  that  while  she  would  witness  his  grief  for  the  love 
that  had  gone  from  her,  a  love  which  she  could  no  more 
give  than  she  could  once  withhold.  The  great  green  park 
lay  before  their  eyes,  they  strayed  through  the  woods  talk- 
ing of  her  Isolde.  He  had  not  seen  the  performance.  He 
had  been  called  away  the  day  she  played  it,  but  his  pockets 
were  full  of  the  articles  that  had  been  written  about  her. 
The  leaves  of  the  beech  trees  shimmered  in  the  steady  sun- 
light, and  they  could  see  the  green  park  through  the  droop- 
ing branches.  She  often  detected  a  sob  in  his  voice,  and 
once,  while  sitting  under  a  cedar  tree  at  the  edge  of  the 
terrace,  he  had  to  turn  aside  to  hide  his  tears,  and  the  sad- 
ness of  everything  made  her  sick  and  ill. 

They  had  tea  in  the  west  hall.  Owen  had  ceased  to 
complain,  and  she  had  begun  to  think  that  she  could  not 
give  him  up  entirely. 

The  day  had  passed  somehow ;  dinner  was  over.  Around 
the  green  park  the  last  light  of  the  sunset  grew  narrower, 
and  the  cattle  faded  mysteriously  into  the  gathering  gloom. 
Owen  held  converse  with  himself,  but  with  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  he  was  listened  to  by  the  second  subject  of 
his  discourse,  and  that  they  themselves  were  his  ideas,  the 
figuration  of  his  teaching,  endowed  his  philosophy  with  a 
dramatic  intensity. 

"  How  you  used  to  hang  round  my  neck  and  listen  with 
eager,  nervous  eyes.  You  always  had  the  genius  of  ex- 
altation. You  were  wonderful;  I  watched  you,  I  under- 
stood you,  I  appreciated  you;  you  were  a  marvellous  jewel 
1  h:id  found,  and  of  which  I  was  excessively  proud.  I 
hardly  lived  at  all  for  myself.  You  were  my  life;  my  life 


EVELYN  INNES.  283 

lived  in  you.  Every  time  I  went  to  see  you,  every  appoint- 
ment was  a  thrill,  a  wonder,  a  mystery.  But  it  was  not 
until  you  took  me  back  after  that  separation  at  Florence 
that  I  sank  into  the  depths  of  love.  Then  I  became  like 
a  diver  in  the  deep  sea.  What  I  had  known  before  were 
but  the  shallows  of  passion.  What  I  felt  after  Florence 
was  the  translucid  calm  of  the  ocean's  depth.  I  lived  in 
the  light  of  an  inner  consciousness,  seeing  you  always,  your 
face  always  before  me,  and  my  whole  being  held  in  a  rapt 
devotion,  a  self-sufficiency,  an  exaltation  beyond  the  reach 
of  words.  Oh,  Evelyn,  I  have  been  extraordinarily  in  love. 
But  all  this  is  nothing  to  you ;  it  even  bores  you." 

"  No,  Owen,  no,  but  you  don't  understand." 

The  desire  to  tell  him  the  truth  came  up  in  her  throat, 
but  the  moment  she  sought  to  express  it  in  words  it  bocamo 
untruth,  and  it  was  to  save  herself  from  falsehood  that  she 
remained  silent. 

"  I  knew  my  mistake,  but  the  temptation  was  irresisti- 
ble. I  wanted  so  to  tell  you  that  I  loved  you.  I  could  not 
deny  myself,  effusion,  tears,  aspiration.  I  gained  two  very 
wonderful  years,  and  so  I  lost  you.  I  wonder  if  any  lover 
would  have  the  courage  to  forswear  these  joys  so  that  he 
might  retain  his  mistress?  Would  any  mistress  be  worthy 
of  the  sacrifice  ?  '  Better  fifty  years  of  Europe  than  a  cycle 
of  Cathay.' " 

"  Owen,  dear,  you're  very  cruel.  Why  do  you  speak 
like  that?  I  shall  never  cease  to  love  you.  Owen,  dear, 
you  don't  hate  me  ?  "  she  said,  turning  towards  him. 

The  silence  was  intense.  It  seemed  to  enter  her  ears 
and  eyes  like  water  or  fire,  and  with  dim  sight  and  a  dis- 
solution of  personal  control  of  her  body,  she  was  moved 
towards  him,  and  without  any  sort  of  thrill  of  desire  she 
was  drawn,  almost  thrown  at  his  feet. 

She  accepted  his  kisses  wearily.  There  was  a  strange 
look  in  her  eyes  which  he  could  not  interpret,  and  she  could 
not  confide  her  secret,  and  there  was  an  inexpressible  sad- 
ness in  these  last  kisses,  and  Owen's  heart  seemed  to  stand 
still  when  he  said — 

"  Her  last  wish  was  our  marriage ;  she  would  be  glad  if 
she  could  see  us." 

Evelyn  hid  her  face  on  his  shoulders  several  times.  He 
thought  she  was  weeping,  but  her  eyes  remained  dry.  Now 


234:  EVELYN  INNES. 

that  they  were  lovers  again,  it  seemed  to  him  impossible 
that  she  coukl  refuse  to  marry  him.  But  she  stood  look- 
ing at  him,  absorbed,  in  the  presence  of  her  future  life,  her 
eyes  full  of  a  strange  farewell,  lie  coukl  extort  no  word 
from  her,  and  her  eyes  retained  their  strange  melancholy 
till  her  departure;  his  last  memory  of  her  visit  was  their 
melancholy. 


XXV. 

THE  forces  within  her  were  at  truce.  She  was  conscious 
of  a  suspension  of  hostilities.  The  moment  was  one  in 
which  she  saw,  as  in  a  mirror,  her  poor,  vague  little  soul  in 
its  hopeless  wandering  through  life.  She  drew  back,  not 
daring  to  see  herself,  and  then  was  drawn  forward  by  a 
febrile  curiosity.  She  felt  towards  them  so  differently  that 
she  could  not  think  of  herself  as  the  same  person  when  she 
was  with  Owen  as  she  was  when  she  was  with  Ulick.  She 
remembered  what  she  had  heard  the  "  dresser "  say,  and 
she  remembered  the  sin.  But  apart  from  the  deception 
she  practised  upon  both  men,  there  was  the  wrong-doing. 
Her  conscience  did  not  assail  her  now;  but  she  knew  that 
she  would  suffer  to-morrow  or  next  day.  That  sense  of  sin 
which  she  could  not  obliterate  from  her  nature  would  rise 
to  her  lips  like  a  salt  wave,  and  poison  her  life  with  its 
bitterness,  and  she  asked  herself  vain  questions:  Why  had 
she  left  her  father?  Why  had  she  two  lovers?  Why  did 
she  rise  to  seek  things  that  made  her  unhappy?  She 
thought  of  yesterday's  journey  to  see  a  dying  woman,  and 
of  to-night's  performance  of  "  Tristan  and  Isolde."  What 
an  unhappy,  maddening  jingle.  The  bitter  wave  of  con- 
science, which  rose  to  her  lips  and  poisoned  her  taste,  forced 
from  her  an  avowal  that  she  would  mend  her  life.  She 
foresaw  nothing  but  deception,  and  easily  imagined  that 
not  a  day  would  pass  without  lies.  All  her  life  would  be 
a  lie,  and  when  her  nature  rose  in  vehement  revolt,  she 
looked  round  for  means  to  free  herself  from  the  fetters 
and  chains  in  which  she  had  locked  herself.  Thinking  «>f 
Owen,  she  vnv.-ed  that  it  inu-l  end.  But  what  excuse  would 


EVELYN  INNES.  285 

she  give?  Should  she  tell  him  that  Ulick  was  her  lover? 
That  was  the  only  way,  only  it  seemed  so  brutal.  Even  so 
she  would  .have  a  lover;  and  strictly  speaking,  she  ought 
to  send  them  both  away.  Very  probably  that  is  what  she 
would  do  in  the  end.  ...  In  the  meantime,  she  would 
keep  them  both  on!  Her  face  contracted  in  an  expression 
of  terror  and  disgust.  Had  her  moralising,  then,  ended  in 
such  miserable  seliishness  as  this? 

To  escape  from  her  thoughts  she  looked  out  at  the  land- 
scape, hoping  it  would  distract  her.  But  she  could  take  no 
interest  in  it.  Yesterday  it  had  seemed  so  beautiful,  but 
to-day  it  was  all  reversed,  and  the  light  was  different.  She 
preferred  to  remember  it.  She  thought  that  they  must  be 
nearing  the  river,  and  she  remembered  how  in  one  place  it 
ran  round  a  field,  making  a  silver  horseshoe  in  the  green 
land,  they  had  crossed  it  twice  in  the  space  of  a  quarter  of 
a  mile;  then  it  followed  the  railway,  placid,  docile,  reflect- 
ing the  trees  and  sky.  Then  like  a  child  it  was  soon  taken 
with  a  new  idea;  it  ran  far  away  out  of  sight,  and  Evelyn 
thought  it  would  never  return.  But  it  came  back  again, 
turbulent  and  shallow;  and  with  woods  on  the  steep  hill- 
side, and  spanned  by  a  beautiful  stone  bridge.  A  little  later 
its  wanderings  grew  still  more  perplexing,  and  she  was  not 
sure  that  it  had  not  been  joined  in  some  strange  way  by  an- 
other river.  But  flowing  round  a  low-lying  field,  coming 
suddenly  from  behind  a  bend  in  the  land,  it  had  seemed  in 
that  place  like  a  pond.  One  bank  was  lined  with  bushes,  the 
other  lay  open  to  a  view  of  a  treeless  plain  divided  by 
ditches.  Three  ladies  had  held  their  light  boat  in  the  deep 
current,  and  she  had  wondered  who  they  were,  and  what 
was  their  manner  of  living  and  their  desires,  and  though 
she  would  never  know  these  things,  the  image  of  these 
ladies  in  their  boat  had  fixed  itself  in  her  mind  for  ever. 

Soon  after  the  train  began  to  slacken  speed,  and  nerv- 
ously she  awaited  her  destiny. 

For  she  was  uncertain  whether  she  would  send  Ulick 
a  telegram,  telling  him  to  come  to  Park  Lane,  or  whether 
she  would  drive  straight  to  his  lodgings.  At  the  bottom 
of  her  heart  she  knew  that  when  she  arrived  at  St.  Pancras 
she  would  tell  the  cabman,  "  Queen's  Square,  Bloomsbury." 
And  an  hour  later,  nervous  with  expectation,  she  sat  in  the 
cab,  seeing  the  streets  pass  behind  her.  She  was  beginning 


286  EVELYN  INNES. 

to  know  the  characteristics  of  the  neighbourhood,  and  in 
the  afternoon  light  they  awoke  her  out  of  a  trembling 
lethargy.  She  recognised  the  old  iron  gateway,  the  open 
space,  the  thirsty  fountain  and  the  troop  of  neglected  chil- 
dren. She  liked  the  forlorn  and  rusty  square.  She  ex- 
perienced a  sort  of  sinking  anguish  while  waiting  on  the 
doorstep,  lest  he  might  not  be  at  home.  But  when  tho 
servant  girl  said  Mr.  Dean  was  upstairs,  she  liked  her  dirty, 
good-natured  smile,  and  she  loved  the  stairs  and  banisters 
— it  was  all  wonderful,  and  she  could  hardly  believe  that  in 
a  few  moments  more  she  would  catch  the  first  sight  of  his 
face.  She  would  have  to  tell  some  part  of  the  truth;  and 
since  Lady  Asher  was  dead,  he  could  not  fail  to  believe. 
He  would  never  think  of  asking  her — she  put  the  ugly 
thought  aside,  and  ran  up  the  second  flight. 

In  the  pauses  of  their  love-making,  they  often  wandered 
round  the  walls  participating  in  the  mystery  of  the  Wan- 
derers, and  the  sempiternal  loveliness  of  figures  who  stood 
with  raised  arms,  by  the  streams  of  Paradise.  It  seemed 
a  profanation  to  turn  from  these  aspirations  to  the  enjoy- 
ment of  material  love,  and  Evelyn  looked  at  Ulick  qucs- 
tioningly.  But  he  said  that  life  only  became  wrong  when 
it  ceased  to  aspire.  In  an  Indian  temple,  it  had  once  been 
asked  who  was  the  most  holy  man  of  all.  A  young  saint 
who  had  not  eaten  for  ten  days  had  been  pointed  out,  but 
he  said  that  the  holiest  man  who  ever  lived  stood  yonder. 
It  was  then  noticed  that  the  man  pointed  to  was  drunk. 
.  .  .  Ulick  explained  that  the  drunkenness  did  not  matter; 
it  was  an  unimportant  detail  in  the  man's  life,  for  none 
aspired  as  he  did;  and  laughing  at  the  story,  they  stood 
by  the  dusty,  windy  pane,  her  hand  resting  on  his  shoul- 
der, and  they  always  remembered  that  that  day  they  had 
seen  the  foliage  in  the  square. 

Lady  Duckle  had  gone  to  Homburg;  Owen  had  been 
obliged  to  go  to  Bath  on  account  of  his  gout;  and  Evelyn 
was  free  to  abandon  herself  to  her  love  of  Ulick  and  to  her 
love  of  her  father,  and  she  begged  him  not  to  spoil  ln-r 
happiness,  but  to  come  to  Dulwich  with  her.  His  scruples 
were  easily  argued  away.  She  urged  that  he  had  not  taken 
her  away,  he  had  brought  her  back  to  her  father.  This  last 
argument  was  convincing,  and  the  happiest  time  in  their 
lives  was  the  week  they  spent  in  Dulwich.  They  sat  down 


EVELYN  INNES.  287 

together  to  dinner  under  the  lamp  at  the  round  table  in 
the  little  back  room,  and  their  evenings  were  passed  at  the 
harpsichord  and  the  clavichord;  and  amid  the  dreams  and 
aspirations  of  great  men  they  attained  their  sublime  na- 
ture. The  music  that  had  been  given  and  that  was  to  be 
given  at  St.  Joseph's  furnished  a  never-failing  subject  of 
discussion,  and  Mr.  Innes  told  them  stories  of  Italy  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  How  almost  every  Sunday  there  was  a 
festival  in  some  church  where  the  most  beautiful  music  was 
heard.  Along  the  nave  were  eight  choirs,  four  on  one  side 
and  four  on  the  other,  raised  on  stages  eight  to  ten  feet 
high,  and  facing  one  another  at  equal  distances.  Each 
choir  had  a  portable  organ,  and  the  maltre  composateur 
beat  the  time  for  the  principal  choir.  And  Mr.  Innes's  eyes 
lighted  up  when  he  spoke  of  the  admirable  style  recatif  in 
the  oratory  of  St.  Marccllus  when  there  was  a  congregation 
of  the  Brothers  of  the  Holy  Crucifix.  This  order  was  com- 
posed of  the  chief  noblemen  of  Rome,  who  had  therefore 
the  power  of  bringing  together  the  rarest  musicians  Italy 
could  produce.  The  voices  began  with  a  psalm  in  motet 
form,  and  then  the  instruments  played  a  symphony,  after 
which  the  voices  sang  a  story  from  the  Old  Testament. 
Each  chorister  represented  a  personage  in  the  story,  etc. 
He  spoke  of  the  great  organist  at  St.  Peter's,  and  the 
wonderful  inventions  he  is  said  to  have  displayed  in  his 
improvisations.  No  one  since  had  played  the  harp  like  the 
renowned  Horatio,  but  there  was  no  one  who  could  play  the 
lyre  like  the  renowned  Ferrabosoo  in  England.  Evelyn 
loaned  across  the  table,  transported  three  centuries  back, 
hearing  nil  this  music,  which  she  had  known  from  her 
earliest  years,  performed  by  virtue  of  her  father's  descrip- 
tion in  Italy,  in  St.  Peter's,  in  the  oratory  of  St.  Marcollus 
and  in  the  church  of  Minerva.  Sometimes  her  father  and 
Tlliok  began  an  argument,  her  sympathies  alternated  be- 
tween them;  she  spoke  very  little,  preferring  to  listen,  not 
liking  to  side  with  either,  agreeing  with  them,  sometimes 
angering  her  father  by  her  neutrality.  But  one  evening 
he  was  a  little  too  insistent,  and  Evelyn  burst  into  tears, 
and  ran  upstairs  to  her  room.  The  two  men  looked  at  each 
other,  and  Mr.  Innes  bogged  Uliek  to  tell  him  if  he  had 
l)eon  unkind,  and  then  besought  him  to  go  upstairs  and  try 
to  induce  Evelyn  to  come  down.  Her  face  brightened  into 
19 


288  EVELYN  INNES. 

merry  laughter  at  her  own  folly,  and  it  called  from  her 
many  entertaining  remarks,  so  Ulick  was  tempted  to  set 
them  one  against  the  other,  and  to  do  so  he  had  only  to 
ask  if  Evelyn  could  sing  such  light  soprano  parts  as  Zer- 
lina  or  Rosetta  as  well  as  her  mother. 

In  the  mornings  Evelyn  and  Ulick  lingered  in  the  shade 
of  the  chestnut  trees  or  loitered  in  the  lanes.  At  one  mo- 
.ment  they  were  telling  each  other  of  the  fatality  of  their 
passion;  in  the  next,  by  some  transition  of  which  they  were 
not  aware,  they  found  themselves  discussing  some  musical 
question.  They  went  for  long  drives;  and  Richmond  Turk, 
not  more  than  eight  or  ten  miles  distant,  was  at  this  season 
a  beautiful,  plaintive  languor.  There  was  a  strange  still- 
ness in  the  air  and  a  tender  bloom  upon  the  blue  sky  which 
spoke  to  the  heart  as  no  words,  as  only  music  could.  The 
shadows  moved  listlessly  among  the  bracken,  and  every  vis- 
ta was  an  enticement.  Soft  rain  had  allayed  the  dust  of 
the  road,  and  the  distant  hillsides  seemed  in  the  morning 
mists  extraordinarily  blue  and  romantic.  There  were  wide 
prospects  suggesting  some  great  domain,  and  about  the 
large  oaks  which  stood  in  these  open  spaces  herds  of  deer 
browsed,  themselves  the  colour  of  the  approaching  month. 
About  a  sudden  hillside,  brilliantly  blue,  the  evanescent 
mist  hung  over  the  heavy  fronds,  going  out  in  the  sunlight 
that  was  breaking  through  a  grey  sky.  Ulick  exclaimed, 
"  II ow  beautiful,"  and  at  the  same  moment  Evelyn  said, 
"Look  at  the  deer,  they  are  going  to  jump  the  railings." 
But  the  deer  ran  underneath,  and  galloped  down  the  slop- 
ing park  between  a  line  of  massive  oaks;  and  the  white 
and  the  tan  hinds  and  fawns  expressed  in  their  life  and 
beauty  something  which  thrilled  in  the  heart,  and  perforce 
Evelyn  and  Ulick  remained  silent.  The  park  was  wreathed 
that  morning  in  sunlight  and  mist,  it  seemed  to  invite  con- 
fidences, and  the  lovers  dreamed  of  a  perfect  union  of  soul. 
The  carriage  was  told  to  wait  for  them,  and  they  took  a 
path  leading  under  a  long  line  of  trees  toward  high  ground. 
Carts  had  passed  there,  and  the  ruts  were  full  of  water,  but 
the  earth  about  them  was  a  little  crisp,  as  if  there  had  heeu 
frost  during  the  night.  They  hud  brought  with  them  a 
score  of  "Parsifal,"  for  it  was  not  yet  certain  that  Kvrlyn 
would  not  play  the  part  of  Kundry.  Notwithstanding 
Ulick's  criticism,  she  thought  she  would  like  to  act  in  the 


EVELYN  INNES.  289 

third  act.  But  they  were  too  interested  in  each  other  to 
open  the  score,  and  they  were  excited  by  the  wonder  of 
Nature  in  the  still  morning.  The  sky  was  all  silver,  and  a 
very  little  distance  bathed  the  hillsides  in  beautiful  blue 
tones.  The  leaves  of  the  oak  trees  hung  languidly,  as  if 
considering  the  lowly  earth  to  which  they  must  soon  return. 
Yet  the  blood  was  hot  and  the  nerves  were  highly  strung, 
and  life  seemed  capable  of  great  things  in  this  moody,  con- 
templative morning.  There  was  a  wonder  in  the  little  wren 
that  picked  her  way  among  the  fronds,  and  a  thrill  in  the 
scurry  of  the  watchful  rabbit;  and  when  they  reached  the 
crest  of  the  upland  and  saw  an  open  expanse  of  park,  with 
the  deer  moving  away  through  the  mist,  their  souls  dilated, 
and  in  happy  ecstasy  they  looked  upon  Nature  with  the 
same  innocent  wonderment  as  the  first  man  and  woman. 

The  morning  seemed  to  inspire  adventure,  and  the  little 
tale  that  Evelyn  was  telling  was  just  what  was  required  to 
enhance  its  suggestion.  By  some  accident  in  the  con- 
versation she  had  been  led  to  speak  of  how  she  had  been- 
nearly  captured  by  pirates  in  the  Mediterranean.  They 
were  becalmed  off  the  African  coast,  and  a  boat  had  rowed 
out  with  fruits  and  vegetables.  The  suspicious  counte- 
nances of  this  boat's  crew  did  not  strike  them  at  the  time. 
But  they  were  a  reconnoitring  party,  and  next  day  about 
four  in  the  afternoon  they  noticed  a  vessel  propelled  by 
sails  and  oars  steering  straight  for  them,  as  if  in  the  inten- 
tion of  running  them  down.  It  paid  no  attention  to  the 
cries  of  the  captain,  but  came  straight  at  them,  and  would 
have  succeeded  in  its  design  if  the  yacht  had  not  been  go- 
ing through  the  water  faster  than  the  pirates  supposed,  so 
they  fell  astern,  and  no  one  thought  any  more  of  them  till 
they  tacked,  and  they  had  almost  overtaken  the  yacht,  they 
were  hardly  distant  more  than  fifty  yards,  when  their  inten- 
tion was  suspected.  The  captain  put  the  Medusa's  head  up 
to  the  wind,  and  she  soon  began  to  leave  her  pursuer  be- 
hind. 

"  We  had  no  arms  on  board,  they  were  fifty  to  twenty ; 
the  men  would  have  been  massacred,  and  I  should  have 
finished  my  days  in  a  harem." 

Illicit  had  brought  his  violin  with  him,  and  they  walked 
under  the  drooping  boughs,  she  singing  and  he  playing  old- 
world  melodies  by  Lulli  and  Kameau.  Sometimes  a  passer- 


290  EVELYN  INNES. 

by  stopped,  and  peering  through,  discovered  them  in  a  hol- 
low sitting  under  an  oak.  A  snake  crawled  out  of  its  hole, 
and  Ulick  was  about  to  rush  forward  to  kill  it,  but  Evelyn 
laid  her  hand  upon  his,  and  said — 

"  Let  it  listen,  poor  thing.  No  living  thing  should  meet 
its  death  for  its  love  of  music." 

"  You're  no  longer  the  Evelyn  Innes  that  loved  Owen 
Asher." 

"  I  think  I  have  changed  a  great  deal.  I  was  very  young 
when  I  knew  him  first." 

She  spoke  of  the  influence  he  had  exercised  over  her, 
but  now  his  ideas  meant  as  little  as  he  did  himself — it  was 
all  far  away.  Only  a  little  trick  of  speech  and  a  turn  of 
phrase  remained  to  recall  his  passage  through  her  life. 
When  they  returned  home  she  found  a  letter  from  him  on 
the  table,  and  her  face  clouded  as  she  read  his  letter,  for  it 
announced  an  intention  to  call  when  he  came  to  town,  and 
to  avoid  his  visit  she  thought  she  would  stop  in  Dulwieh. 
But  if  she  stayed  over  Saturday,  she  would  have  to  go  to 
Mass  on  Sunday.  Last  Sunday  she  escaped  by  pleading  in- 
disposition. She  wondered  which  she  would  prefer,  to  face 
Owen  or  to  brave  the  effect  that  she  knew  Mass  would  pro- 
duce upon  her. 


XXVI. 

RUE  was  in  the  music-room,  looking  through  the  first 
act  of  "  Grama,"  and  thinking  that  perhaps  after  all  she 
might  remain  on  the  stage  and  create  the  part.  Her  father 
had  gone  to  St.  Joseph's  for  choir  practice.  I'lick  had  gone 
to  London  for  strings  for  her  viola  da  gamba;  and  all  the 
morning  she  had  been  uneasy  and  expectant.  The  feeling 
never  quite  left  her  that  something  was  about  to  happen, 
that  she  was  to  meet  someone — someone  for  whom  she  had 
been  waiting  a  long  while.  So  she  started  on  hearing  the 
front  door  bell  ring.  She  could  think  of  no  one  whom  it 
might  bo  unless  Owen.  If  it  were,  what  would  she  uyl 
And  she  waited,  eager  for  the  servant  to  announce  the  visi- 
tor. It  was  Mousignor  Mostyn. 


EVELYN  1NNES.  291 

She  was  dressed  in  a  muslin  tea-gown  over  shot  green 
silk,  and  was  conscious  of  her  triviality  as  she  stood  before 
the  tall,  spare  ecclesiastic.  She  admired  the  calm,  refined 
beauty  of  his  face,  the  bright,  dark  eyes  and  the  thin  fea- 
tures, steadfast  and  aloof  as  some  saints  she  had  seen  in 
pictures. 

"  I  called  to  see  your  father,  Miss  Innes,  but  he  is  not 
in,  and  hearing  that  you  were,  I  asked  to  see  you.  For  my 
business  is  really  with  you,  that  is,  if  you  can  spare  the 
time?" 

"  Won't  you  sit  down,  Monsignor  ?  " 

"  I  have  come,  Miss  Innes,  to  remind  you  of  a  promise 
that  you  once  made  me." 

The  colour  returned  to  her  cheeks,  and  a  smile  to  her 
lips.  But  she  did  not  remember,  and  was  slightly  em- 
barrassed. 

"  Did  I  make  you  a  promise  ?  " 

"  Have  you  forgotten  my  speaking  to  you  about  some 
poor  sisters  who  might  be  driven  from  their  convent  if  they 
failed  to  pay  the  interest  on  a  mortgage? " 

"  Ah,  yes,  on  the  night  of  the  concert." 

"  They  have  paid  the  interest  and  kept  a  roof  over  their 
heads,  but  in  doing  so  they  have  exhausted  their  resources; 
and  not  to  put  too  fine  a  point  upon  it,  I  am  afraid  they 
often  have  not  enough  to  eat.  Something  must  be  done 
for  them.  I  thought  that  a  concert  would  be  the  quickest 
way  of  getting  them  some  money." 

"  You  want  me  to  sing  ?  " 

"  It  really  would  be  a  charitable  action." 

"  I  shall  be  delighted  to  sing  for  them.  Where  is  this 
convent  2 " 

"At  Wimbledon." 

"  My  old  convent!     The  Passionist  Sisters!  " 

"Your  old  convent?" 

"  Yes,"  Evelyn  replied,  the  colour  rising  slightly  to  her 
cheeks.  "  I  made  a  retreat  there,  long  ago,  before  I  went 
on  the  stage." 

She  was  grieved  to  hear  that  the  Reverend  Mother  she 
had  known  was  dead;  she  had  died  two  years  ago,  and 
Mother  Margaret  was  dead  too.  Monsignor  could  tell  her 
nothing  about  Sister  Bonaventure.  Mother  Philippa  was 
the  sub-prioress;  and  in  the  midst  of  her  questions  he  ex- 


292  EVELYN  INNES. 

plained  how  the  financial  difficulties  had  arisen.  They 
were,  he  said,  the  result  of  the  imprudences  of  the  late 
Reverend  Mother,  one  of  the  best  arid  holiest  of  women, 
but  unfortunately  not  endowed  with  sufficient  business 
foresight.  He  was  quite  prepared  to  admit  that  the  little 
wooden  chapel  which  had  preceded  the  present  chapel  was 
inadequate,  and  that  she  was  justified  in  building  another, 
but  not  in  expending  nearly  one  thousand  pounds  in  stained 
glass.  The  new  chapel  had  cost  ten  thousand  pounds,  and 
the  interest  of  this  money  had  to  be  paid.  There  were 
other  debts — 

"  But  there  is  no  reason  why  I  should  weary  you  with 
an  exact  statement." 

"  But  you  do  not  weary  me,  Consignor ;  I  am,  on  the 
contrary,  deeply  interested." 

"  The  convent  owes  a  great  deal  to  the  late  Reverend 
Mother,  and  the  last  thing  I  wish  to  express  is  disapproval. 
We  do  not  know  the  circumstances,  and  must  not  judge 
her;  we  know  that  she  acted  for  the  best.  No  doubt  she 
is  now  praying  to  God  to  secure  the  safety  of  her  convent." 

Evelyn  sat  watching  him,  fascinated  by  the  clear,  per- 
emptory, ecclesiastical  dignity  which  he  represented.  If 
he  had  a  singing  voice,  she  said  to  herself,  it  would  be  a 
tenor.  He  had  allowed  the  conversation  to  wander  from 
the  convent  to  the  concert;  and  they  were  soon  talking  of 
their  musical  preferences.  There  was  an  impersonal  ten- 
derness, a  spiritual  solicitude  in  his  voice  which  enchained 
her;  no  single  idea  held  her,  but  wave  after  wave  of  sen-a- 
tion  passed,  transforming  and  dissolving,  changeable  as 
a  cloud.  Human  life  demands  hope,  and  the  priest  is  a 
symbol  of  hope;  there  is  always  a  moment  when  the  re- 
ligionist doubts,  and  there  is  also  a  moment  when  the 
atheist  says,  "Who  knows,  perhaps."  And  this  man  had 
done  what  she  had  not  been  able  to  do:  he  had  put  a.-ide  th" 
paltry  pleasures  of  the  world,  he  placed  his  faith  in  things 
beyond  the  world,  pleasures  which  perchance  were  not  pal- 
try. An  entirely  sensual  life  was  a  terrible  oppression; 
hers  often  weighed  upon  her  like  a  nightmare;  to  be  happy 
one  must  have  an  ideal  and  strive  to  live  up  to  it.  Her 
mind  flickered  and  sank,  changing  rapidly  as  an  evening 
sky,  never  coming  to  anything  distinct  enough  to  be 
called  a  thought.  She  desired  to  hear  him  speak,  she  felt 


EVELYN  INNES.  293 

that  she  must  speak  to  him  about  religion;  she  wanted  to 
know  if  he  were  sure,  arid  how  he  had  arrived  at  his  certi- 
tudes. .  .  .  She  wanted  to  talk  to  him  about  life,  death 
and  immortality.  She  had  tried  to  lead  the  conversation 
into  a  religious  discussion,  but  he  seemed  to  avoid  it,  and 
just  as  she  was  about  to  put  a  definite  question,  Ulick  came 
into  the  room.  He  stood  crushing  his  grey  felt  hat  between 
his  hands,  a  somewhat  curious  figure,  and  she  watched  him 
talking  to  Monsignor,  thinking  of  the  difference  of  vision. 
As  Ulick  said,  everything  was  in  that.  Men  were  divided 
by  the  difference  of  their  visions.  She  was  curious  to  know 
how  the  dogmatic  and  ritualistic  vision  of  Monsignor  af- 
fected Ulick,  and  when  the  prelate  left  she  asked  him. 

He  was  as  ingenuous  and  unexpected  on  this  subject  as 
he  was  on  all  subjects.  If  the  antique  priest,  he  said, 
clothed  himself  in  purple,  it  was  to  produce  an  exaltation 
in  himself  which  would  bring  him  closer  to  the  idea,  which 
would  render  him,  as  it  were  accessible  to  it.  But  the  vest- 
ments of  the  modern  priest  had  lost  their  original  meaning, 
they  were  mere  parade.  This  explanation  was  very  like 
Ulick;  she  smiled,  and  was  interested,  but  her  interest  was 
passing  and  superficial.  The  advent  of  the  priest  had 
moved  her  in  the  depths  of  her  being,  and  her  mind  was 
thick  with  lees  of  ancient  sentiment,  and  wrecks  of  belief, 
had  floated  up  and  hung  in  mid  memory.  She  knew  that 
the  beauty  of  the  ritual,  the  eternal  psalms,  the  divine 
sacrifice,  ihe  very  ring  of  the  bell,  the  antiquity  of  the 
language,  lifted  her  out  of  herself,  and  into  a  higher,  a 
more  intense  ecstasy  than  the  low  medium  of  this  world's 
desires.  And  if  she  did  not  believe  that  the  bread  and 
wine  were  the  true  body  and  blood  of  God,  she  still  be- 
lieved in  the  real  Presence.  She  was  aware  of  it  as  she 
might  be  of  the  presence  of  someone  in  the  room,  though 
he  might  be  hidden  from  her  eyes.  Though  the  bread  and 
wine  might  not  be  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  still  tho 
act  of  consecration  did  seem  to  her  to  call  down  the  Spirit 
of  God,  and  it  had  seemed  to  her  to  inhabit  the  church 
at  the  moment  of  consecration.  It  might  not  be  true  to 
Owen,  nor  yet  to  Flick,  but  it  was  true  to  her — it  was  a 
difference  of  vision.  .  .  .  She  sat  buried  in  herself.  Then 
she  walked  to  the  window  confused  and  absorbed,  with 
something  of  the  dread  of  a  woman  who  finds  herself  sud- 


294  EVELYN  INNES. 

denly  with  child.  When  Uliek  caine  to  her  she  did  not  no- 
tice him,  and  when  he  asked  her  to  do  some  music  with  him 
she  refused,  and  when  he  put  his  arms  about  her  she  drew 
away  sullenly,  almost  resentfully. 

A  few  days  after  she  was  in  Park  Lane.  She  had  gone 
there  to  pay  some  bills,  and  she  was  going  through  them 
when  she  was  startled  by  the  front  door  bell.  It  was  a 
visitor  without  doubt.  Her  thoughts  leaped  to  Monsignor, 
and  her  face  lighted  up.  But  he  did  not  know  she  was  at 
Park  Lane;  he  would  not  go  there.  ...  It  was  Owen  come 
up  from  Bath.  What  should  she  say  to  him?  Good  Ivav- 
ens !  It  was  too  late  to  say  she  was  not  at  home.  He  was 
already  on  the  stairs.  And  when  he  entered  he  divined 
that  he  was  not  welcome.  They  sat  opposite  each  other, 
trying  to  talk.  Suddenly  he  besought  her  not  to  throw 
him  over.  .  .  .  She  had  to  refuse  to  kiss  him,  and  that  was 
convincing,  he  said.  Once  a  woman  was  not  greedy  for 
kisses,  the  end  was  near.  And  his  questions  were  to  the 
point,  and  irritatingly  categorical.  Had  she  ever  been 
unfaithful  to  him?  Did  she  love  Ulick  Dean?  Not  con- 
It  -nt  with  a  simple  denial,  he  took  her  by  both  hands,  and 
looking  her  straight  in  the  face,  asked  her  to  give  him  her 
word  of  honour  that  Ulick  Dean  was  not  her  lover,  that  she 
had  never  kissed  him,  that  she  had  never  even  desired  t<> 
kiss  him,  that  no  idea  of  love  making  had  ever  arisen  be- 
tween them.  She  pledged  her  word  on  every  point,  and  this 
was  the  second  time  that  her  liaison  with  Ulick  had  obliged 
her  to  lie,  deliberately  in  so  many  words.  Nor  did  ihe  lying 
i -vcn  end  there,  lie  wanted  her  to  stay,  to  dine  with  him; 
she  had  to  invent  excuses — more  lies. 

She  was  returning  to  Dulwich  in  her  carriage,  and  until 
she  arrived  home  her  thoughts  hankered  and  gnawed,  pe- 
tered and  terrified  her.  Never  had  she  felt  so  ashamed. 
so  disgusted  with  herself,  and  iho  after  taste  of  the  false- 
hoods she  had  told  came  back  into  her  mouth,  and  her 
face  grew  dark  in  the  beautiful  summer  evening.  Her 
brows  were  knit,  and  she  resolved  that  if  the  occasion 
happened  again,  she  would  toll  Owen  the  truth.  This  was 
no  mock  determination;  on  this  point  she  was  quite  sure 
of  herself.  Looking  round  she  saw  the  mean  streets  of 
Cambenvoll.  She  saw  I  hem  for  a  moment,  and  then  sho 
sank  back  into  her  reverie. 


EVELYN  INNES.  205 

She  was  deceiving  Owen,  she  was  deceiving  her  father, 
she  was  deceiving  Ulick,  she  was  deceiving  Monsignor — 
lie  would  not  have  thought  of  asking  her  to  sing  at  the 
concert  if  he  knew  what  a  life  was  hers.  Nor  would  those 
good  women  at  the  convent  accept  her  aid  if  they  knew 
what  kind  of  woman  she  was.  And  the  strange  thing  was 
that  she  did  not  believe  herself  to  be  a  bad  woman;  at  the 
bottom  of  her  heart  she  loved  truth  and  sincerity.  She 
wished  to  have  an  ideal  and  to  live  up  to  it,  yet  she  was 
doing  the  very  opposite.  That  was  what  was  so  strange, 
that  was  what  she  did  not  understand,  that  was  what  made 
her  incomprehensible  to  herself.  She  sighed,  and  at  the 
bottom  of  her  heart  there  lay  an  immense  weariness,  a 
weariness  of  life,  of  the  life  she  was  leading,  and  she  longed 
for  a  life  that  would  coincide  with  her  principles,  and  she 
felt  that  if  she  did  not  change  her  life,  she  would  do  some- 
thing desperate.  She  might  kill  herself. 

It  is  true  that  man  is  a  moral  animal,  but  it  is  not  true 
that  there  is  but  one  morality;  there  are  a  thousand,  the 
morality  of  each  race  is  different,  the  morality  of  every 
individual  differs.  The  origin  of  each  sect  is  the  desire 
to  affirm  certain  moral  ideas  which  particularly  appeal  to 
it;  every  change  of  faith  is  determined  by  the  moral  tem- 
perament of  the  individual;  we  prefer  this  religion  to  that 
religion  because  our  moral  ideas  are  more  implicit  in  these 
affirmations  than  in  those. 

These  revulsions  of  feeling  alternated  with  remem- 
brances of  Owen's  tenderness;  fugitive  sensations  of  him 
tingled  in  her  veins,  and  ill  disposed  her  to  Ulick.  She 
spoke  little,  and  sat  with  averted  eyes. 

As  she  lay  in  bed,  conscious  of  the  inextricable  tangle 
of  her  life,  it  was  knotting  so  closely  and  rapidly  that  her 
present  double  life  could  not  endure  much  longer,  the 
odious  taste  of  the  lies  she  had  told  that  afternoon  rose 
again  to  her  lips,  and,  as  if  to  quench  the  bitterness,  she 
vowed  that  she  would  tell  Owen  the  truth  ...  if  he  asked 
her.  If  he  did  not  ask  her  she  would  have  to  bear  the 
burden  of  her  lies.  She  tried  not  to  wish  that  he  might 
ask  her.  Then  questions  sallied  from  every  side.  She 
could  not  marry  Owen  without  telling  him  about  Ulick. 
She  could  not  marry  Flick  without  telling  him  that  she 
had  been  unfaithful  to  him  with  Owen.  Should  she  send 


296  EVELYN  INNES. 

away  Owen  and  marry  Ulick,  or  would  it  be  better  to 
away  Ulick  and  marry  Owen — if  he  would  marry  her  after 
he  had  heard  her  confession?  It  was  unendurable  to  have 
to  tell  lies  all  day  long — yes,  all  day  long — of  one  sort  or 
another.  She  ought  to  send  them  both  away.  .  .  .  But 
could  she  remain  on  the  stage  without  a  lover?  Could 
she  go  to  Bayreuth  by  herself?  Could  she  give  up  the 
stage?  And  then? 

She  awoke  in  a  different  mood — at  least,  it  seemed  ti 
her  that  her  mood  was  different.  She  was  not  thinking  of 
Owen,  of  the  lies  she  had  told  him;  and  she  could  talk 
gaily  with  Ulick  about  the  concert  she  had  promised  in 
sing  at.  She  seemed  inclined  to  take  the  whole  responsibil- 
ity  of  this  concert  upon  her  own  shoulders.  As  Uliek  said, 
it  was  impossible  for  her  to  take  a  small  part  in  any  con- 
cert. 

They  were  driving  in  Richmond  Park,  not  far  from  th°, 
convent.  The  autumn-tinted  landscape,  the  vicissitudes  of 
the  woods,  and  the  plaintive  air  brought  a  tender  yearning 
into  her  mood,  and  she  contrasted  the  lives  of  those  poor, 
holy  women  with  her  own  life.  Ulick  did  not  intrude  him- 
self;  he  sat  silent  by  her,  and  she  thought  of  Monsignor. 
Sometimes  he  was  no  more  than  a  little  shadow  in  the  back- 
ground of  her  mind ;  but  he  was  never  wholly  absent,  and 
that  day  all  matters  were  unconsciously  referred  to  him. 
She  was  curious  to  know  what  his  opinions  were  of  the 
stage;  and  as  they  returned  home  in  the  short,  luminous 
autumn  evening,  she  seemed  to  discover  suddenly  the  fact 
that  she  was  no  longer  as  much  interested  in  the  stage  as 
she  used  to  be.  She  even  thought  that  she  would  not  great- 
ly can-  if  she  never  sang  on  the  stage  again.  Last  night, 
she  had  put  the  thought  aside  as  if  it  were  madness,  to-day 
it  seemed  almost  natural.  Thinking  of  the  poor  sisters 
who  lived  in  prayer  and  poverty  mi  the  edge  of  the  com- 
mon, she  remembered  that  her  life  was  given  up  to  the  por- 
trayal of  sensual  emotion  on  the  stage.  She  remembered 
the  fierce  egotism  of  the  stage — an  egotism  which  pursued 
her  into  every  corner  of  her  life.  Compared  with  the  lives 
of  the  poor  sisters  who  had  renounced  all  that  was  base  in 
them,  her  life  was  very  base  indeed.  In  her  stage  life  she 
was  an  agent  of  the  sensual  passion,  not  only  with  her 
voice,  but  with  her  arms,  her  neck  and  hair,  and  every 


EVELYN  INNES.  297 

expression  of  her  face,  and  it  was  the  craving  of  the  music 
that  had  thrown  her  into  Ulick's  arms.  If  it  had  subju- 
gated her,  how  much  more  would  it  subjugate  and  hold 
within  its  sensual  persuasion  the  ignorant  listener — the 
listener  who  would  perceive  in  the  music  nothing  but  its 
sensuality.  Why  had  the  Church  not  placed  stage  life 
under  the  ban  of  mortal  sin?  It  would  have  done  so  if  it 
knew  what  stage  life  was,  and  must  always  be.  She  then 
wondered  what  Monsignor  thought  of  the  stage,  and  from 
the  moment  her  curiosity  was  engaged  on  this  point  it  did 
not  cease  to  trouble  her  till  it  brought  her  to  the  door  of 
the  presbytery.  The  ostensible  object  of  her  visit  was  to 
make  certain  proposals  to  Monsignor  regarding  the  music 
she  was  to  sing  at  the  concert. 

She  was  shown  into  a  small  room;  its  one  window  was 
so  high  up  on  the  wall  that  the  light  was  dim  in  the  room, 
though  outside  there  was  brilliant  sunshine.  The  sadness 
of  the  little  room  struck  cold  upon  her,  and  she  noticed  the 
little  space  of  floor  covered  with  cocoa-nut  matting,  and 
how  it  grated  under  the  feet.  The  furniture  was  a  polished 
oak  table,  with  six  chairs  to  match.  A  pious  print  hung  on 
each  wall.  One  was  St.  Monica  and  St.  Augustine,  and  the 
rapt  expression  of  their  faces  reminded  her  that  she  might 
be  bartering  a  divine  inheritance  for  a  coarse  pleasure  that 
left  but  regret  in  the  heart.  And  it  was  in  such  heartsick 
humour  that  Monsignor  found  her.  He  seemed  to  assume 
that  she  needed  his  help,  and  the  tender  solicitude  with 
which  he  wished  to  come  to  her  aid  was  in  itself  a  consola- 
tion. She  was  already  an  incipient  penitent  as  she  told 
him  of  her  project  to  bring  an  orchestra  at  her  own  expense 
to  Wimbledon,  and  give  the  forest  murmurs  with  the  Bird 
Song  from  "  Siegfried."  Monsignor  left  everything  to 
her;  he  placed  himself  unreservedly  in  her  hands.  After 
a  long  silence  she  pushed  a  cheque  for  fifty  pounds  across 
the  table,  begging  him  not  to  mention  the  name  of  the 
giver.  She  was  singing  for  them,  that  was  sufficient  obliga- 
tion. He  approved  of  her  delicacy  of  feeling,  thanked  her 
for  her  generosity,  and  the  business  of  the  interview  seemed 
ended. 

"  I'm  so  much  obliged  to  you,  Monsignor  Mostyn,  for 
having  come  to  me,  for  having  given  me  an  opportunity  of 
doing  some  good  with  my  money.  Hitherto,  I'm  ashamed 


298  EVELYN  INNES. 

to  say,  I've  spent  it  all  on  myself.  It  has  often  seemed  to 
me  intolerably  selfish,  and  I  often  felt  that  I  must  do  some- 
thing, only  I  did  not  know  what  to  do." 

Then,  feeling  that  she  must  take  him  into  her  confi- 
dence, she  asked  him  what  proportion  of  our  income  we 
should  devote  to  charity.  He  said  it  was  impossible  to  fix 
a  precise  sum,  but  he  knew  many  deserving  cases,  and  of- 
fered to  advise  her  in  the  distribution  of  whatever  money 
she  might  decide  to  spend  in  charity.  Suddenly  his  manner 
changed;  he  even  seemed  to  wish  her  to  stay,  and  the  con- 
versation turned  back  to  music.  The  conversation  was 
mundane  as  possible,  and  it  was  only  now  and  then,  by 
some  slight  allusion  to  the  Church,  that  he  reminded  Eve- 
lyn, and  perchance  himself,  that  the  essential  must  bo 
distinguished  from  the  circumstantial. 

Again  and  again  the  temptation  rose  up,  it  seemed  to 
look  out  from  her  very  eyes,  and  she  was  so  conscious  of 
this  irresistible  desire  to  speak  to  him  of  herself  that  she 
no  longer  heard  him,  and  hardly  saw  the  blank  wall  with 
the  pious  print  upon  it. 

"  I  have  not  told  you,  Monsignor,"  she  said  at  last,  "  that 
I  am  leaving  the  stage." 

She  knew  that  he  must  ask  her  what  had  induced  her  to 
think  of  taking  so  important  a  step,  and  then  she  would 
have  an  opportunity  of  asking  his  opinion  of  the  slnuc. 
Of  course  neither  Ulick's  nor  Owen's  name  would  be  men- 
tioned. 

"  As  at  present  constituted,  the  stage  is  a  dangerous 
influence.  Some  women  no  doubt  are  capable  of  resisting 
evil  even  when  surrounded  by  evil.  Even  sn  thr.v  set  a 
bad  example,  for  the  very  knowledge  of  their  virtue  tempts 
others  less  sure  of  themselves  to  engage  in  the  same  life, 
and  these  weak  ones  fall.  The  virtuous  actress  is  like  a 
false  light,  which  instead  of  warning  vessels  from  the  rocks 
entices  them  to  their  ruin." 

He  did  not  indite  the  Oberammcrgau  Passion  Play,  but 
he  could  not  accept  "  Parsifal."  He  had  heard  Catholics 
aver,  while  approving  of  the  performance  of  "Parsifal,"  that 
they  would  not  wish  to  see  the  piece  performed  out  of  Bay- 
reuth.  But  he  failed  to  understand  this  point  of  view 
altogether.  It  seemed  to  assume  that  a  parody  of  the  Ala-- 
was unobjectionable  at  Bayreuth,  though  not  elsewhere. 


EVELYN  INNES.  299 

If  there  was  no  parody  of  the  Mass,  why  should  they  say 
that  they  would  not  like  to  see  the  piece  performed  else- 
where? He  had  read  the  book  and  knew  the  music,  and 
could  not  understand  how  a  great  work  of  art  could  con- 
tain scenes  from  real  life.  Whether  these  be  religious 
ceremonies  or  social  functions,  the  artistic  sin  is  the  same. 
He  asked  Evelyn  why  she  was  smiling,  and  she  told  him 
that  it  was  because  the  only  two  whom  she  had  heard  dis- 
approve of  "  Parsifal "  were  Monsignor  Mostyn  and  Ulick 
Dean.  It  seemed  strange  that  two  such  extremes  should 
agree  regarding  the  profligacy  of  "  Parsifal."  Monsignor 
was  interested  for  a  moment  in  Ulick  Dean's  views,  and 
then  he  said — 

"  But  was  it  with  the  intention  of  consulting  me,  Miss 
Innes,  that  you  introduced  the  subject?  I  hear  that  you 
are  going  to  play  the  principal  part  next  year — Kundry." 

"  Nothing  is  settled.  As  I  told  you  just  now,  Monsig- 
nor, I  am  thinking  of  leaving  the  stage,  and  your  opinions 
concerning  it  do  not  encourage  me  to  remain  an  actress." 

"  My  dear  child,  you  have  had  the  good  fortune  to  be 
brought  up  in  holy  Church.  You  have,  I  hope,  constant 
recourse  to  the  sacraments.  You  have  confided  the  diffi- 
culties of  your  stage  life  to  your  confessor.  How  does  he 
advise  you  ? " 

Raising  her  eyes,  Evelyn  said  in  a  sinking  voice — 

"  Even  if  one  has  doubts  about  the  whole  doctrine  of 
lhe  Church,  it  is  still  possible  to  wish  to  lead  a  good  life. 
Don't  you  think  so,  Monsignor  ?  " 

"  There  are  many  Protestants  who  lead  excellent  lives. 
But  I  have  always  noticed  that  when  a  Catholic  begins  to 
question  the  doctrines  of  the  Church,  his  or  her  doubts 
were  preceded  by  a  desire  to  lead  an  irregular  life." 

And  in  the  silence  Evelyn  became  aware  of  the  after- 
noon sun  shining  through  the  window  above  their  heads, 
enlivening  the  dark  parlour.  It  seemed  strange  to  sit  dis- 
cussing such  subjects  in  the  sunshine.  The  ray  that  fell 
through  the  window  lighted  up  the  priest's  thin  face  till  it 
seemed  like  one  of  the  wooden  carvings  she  had  seen  in 
Germany.  When  he  resumed  the  conversation  it  was  to 
load  her  to  speak  of  herself  and  the  reasons  which  had 
suggested  an  abandonment  of  her  stage  career.  The  ten- 
tier,  impersonal  kindness  of  the  priest  drew  her  out  of  her- 


300  EVELYN  INNES. 

self,  and  she  told  him  how  she  had  begun  to  perceive  that 
the  stage  had  ceased  to  interest  her  as  it  had  once  done; 
she  spoke  of  vulgarity  and  parade,  yet  that  was  not  quite 
what  she  meant;  it  had  come  to  seem  to  her  like  so  much 
waste,  as  if  she  were  wasting  her  time  in  doing  things 
that  did  not  matter,  like  grown  people  would  feel  if  they 
were  asked  to  pass  the  afternoon  playing  with  dolls.  Shrug- 
ging her  shoulders  hysterically,  she  said  she  could  not  ex- 
plain. 

"  But  have  you  an  idea  of  what  life  you  wish  to  lead  ?  " 

"  No,  I  don't  think  I  have ;  I  only  know  that  I  am  not 
happy  in  my  present  life." 

"  I  believe  you  see  a  good  deal  of  Sir  Owen  Asher.  He 
helped  you,  did  he  not,  in  your  musical  education  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  answered  under  her  breath.  "  He  is  an 
intimate  friend."  In  a  moment  of  unexpected  courage, 
she  said,  "  Do  you  know  him,  Monsignor?  " 

"  I  have  heard  a  good  deal  about  him,  and  nothing,  I 
regret  to  say,  to  his  credit.  He  is,  I  believe,  an  avowed 
atheist,  and  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  his  unbelief  in 
every  society,  and  to  make  open  boast  of  an  immoral  life. 
He  has  read  and  tried  to  understand  a  little  more  than  the 
people  with  whom  he  associates.  I  suppose  the  doubts 
you  entertain  regarding  the  doctrine  of  the  Church  are  the 
result  of  his  teaching  ?  " 

With  a  little  pathetic  air,  Evelyn  admitted  that  Owon 
had  used  every  possible  argument  to  destroy  her  faith. 
She  had  rend  Huxlpy,  Darwin,  and  a  little  Herbert  Sponccr. 

"Herbert  Spencer!  Miserable  collections  of  trivial 
facts,  bearing  upon  nothing.  Of  what  value,  I  ask,  can  it 
l»e  to  suffering  humanity  to  know  that  such  and  such  a 
fact  has  been  observed  and  described?  Then  the  gem  -nil 
law!  rubbish,  ridiculous  rubbish!" 

[  "  The  scientists  fail  to  see  that  what  we  feel  matters 
'much  more  than  what  we  know.'*} 

"  True,  quite  true,"  he  said,  turning  sharply  and  looking 
at  her  with  admiration.  Then,  recollecting  himself,  he 
said,  "But  God  does  not  exist  because  we  feel  he  exists 
He  exists  not  through  us,  but  through  himself,  from  all 
time  and  through  all  rtornity.  To  feel  is  better  than  to 
observe,  t<»  pray  is  hotter  th:m  to  inquire,  but  indiscrim- 
inate abandonment  to  our  feelings  would  lead  us  to  give 


EVELYN  INNES.  301 

credence  to  every  superstition.  You  have,  I  perceive,  es- 
caped from  the  rank  materialism  of  Sir  Owen's  teaching, 
but  whither  are  you  drifting,  my  dear  child  ?  You  must  re- 
turn to  the  Church;  without  the  Church,  we  are  as  ves- 
sels without  a  rudder  or  compass." 

lie  walked  up  and  down  the  room  as  though  debating 
with  himself.  Evelyn  held  her  breath,  wondering  what 
new  turn  the  conversation  would  take.  Suddenly  she  lost 
her  courage,  and  overcome  with  fear  got  up  to  go,  and 
Monsignor,  considering  that  enough  had  been  said,  did  not 
attempt  to  detain  her.  But  as  he  bade  her  good-bye  at 
the  door,  his  keen  eye  fixed  upon  her,  .he  added,  "  Kemem- 
ber,  I  do  not  admit  your  difficulties  to  be  intellectual  ones. 
When  you  come  to  realise  that  for  yourself,  I  shall  be  glad 
to  do  all  in  my  power  to  help  you.  God  bless  you,  my 
child ! " 

If  only  she  could  put  the  whole  thing  aside — refuse  to 
bother  her  head  any  more,  or  else  believe  blindly  what  she 
was  told.  She  .hated  wobbling,  yet  she  did  nothing  else. 
Suddenly  she  felt  that  if  she  were  to  believe  at  all,  it  must 
be  like  Monsignor.  The  magnetism  of  his  faith  thrilled 
her,  and,  in  a  moment,  it  had  all  become  real  to  her.  But 
it  was  too  late.  She  could  never  do  all  her  religion  asked. 
Her  whole  life  would  have  to  come  to  pieces;  nothing  of 
it  would  remain,  and  she  entirely  lost  heart  when  she  con- 
sidered in  detail  the  sacrifices  she  would  have  to  make. 
She  saw  herself  at  Dulwich  with  her  father,  giving  singing 
lessons,  attending  the  services,  and  living  about  St.  Jo- 
seph's. She  saw  herself  singing  operas  in  every  capital, 
and  always  a  new  lover  at  her  heels.  Both  lives  were 
equally  impossible  to  her.  As  she  lay  back  in  her  car- 
riage driving  through  the  lazy  summer  streets,  she  almost 
wished  she  had  no  conscience  at  all.  What  was  the  use  of 
it?  She  had  just  enough  to  spoil  her  happiness  in  wrong- 
doing, yet  not  enough  to  prevent  her  doing  what  deep 
down  in  her  heart  she  knew  to  be  wrong. 

That  evening  she  wrote  a  number  of  letters,  and  begged 
a  subscription  of  every  friend — Owen  was  out  of  the  ques- 
tion and  she  hesitated  whether  she  should  make  tise  of 
Ulick.  She  would  have  liked  to  have  left  him  out  of  this 
concert  altogether,  and  it  was  only  because  she  had  no  one 
else  whom  she  could  depend  upon  that  she  consented  to 


302  EVELYN  INNES. 

let  him  go  off  in  search  of  the  necessary  tenor.  But  to  take 
him  to  the  concert  did  not  seem  right. 

She  dipped  her  pen  in  the  ink,  and  then  laid  it  down, 
overcome  by  a  sudden  and  intolerable  melancholy.  She 
could  have  cried,  so  great  was  her  weariness  with  the 
world,  so  worthless  did  her  life  seem.  She  had  begged  her 
father's  forgiveness;  he  had  forgiven  her,  but  she  had  not 
sent  away  her  lover.  .  .  .  She  had  told  Monsignor  that. 
in  consequence  of  certain  scruples  of  conscience,  she  in- 
tended to  give  up  the  stage,  but  she  had  not  told  him 
that  she  had  taken  another  lover  and  brought  him  to  live 
with  her  under  her  father's  roof.  Whether  there  was  a 
God  and  a  hereafter,  or  merely  oblivion,  such  conduct  as 
hers  was  surely  wrong.  She  walked  to  and  fro,  and  came 
to  a  resolution  regarding  her  relations  with  Ulick,  at  all 
events  in  her  father's  house. 

Then  life  seemed  perfectly  hopeless,  and  she  wished 
Monsignor  had  not  come  to  see  her.  What  could  she  do 
to  shake  off  this  clammy  and  unhealthy  depression  which 
hung  about  her?  She  might  go  for  a  walk,  but  where? 
The  perspective  of  the  street  recalled  the  days  when  she 
used  to  stand  at  the  window  wondering  if  nothing  would 
ever  happen  to  her.  She  remembered  the  moment  with 
singular  distinctness  when  she  heard  the  voice  crying  with- 
in her,  "Will  nothing  ever  happen?  Will  this  go  on 
for  ever  ?  "  She  remembered  the  very  tree  and  the  very 
angle  of  the  house!  Dulwich  was  too  familiar;  it  was  like 
living  in  a  room  where  there  was  nothing  but  mirrors. 
Dulwich  was  one  vast  mirror  of  her  past  life.  In  Dul- 
wich she  was  never  living  in  the  present.  She  could  not 
see  Dulwich,  she  could  only  remember  it.  One  walk  more 
in  that  ornamental  park !  She  knew  it  too  well !  And  the 
picture  gallery  meant  Owen — she  would  only  see  him  and 
hear  his  remarks.  Her  thoughts  reverted  to  his  proposal  of 
marriage  and  her  acceptance.  Not  for  the  whole  world ! 
Why,  she  did  not  know.  He  had  been  very  good  to  her. 
Her  ingratitude  shocked  her.  She  shrugged  her  shoulders 
hysterically;  she  could  not  help  it — that  was  how  she 
felt. 

But  Ulick?  Should  she  marry  him  and  accept  ihe 
Gods?  That  would  settle  everything. 

But  a  sense  of  humour  solves  nothing,  and  at  that  mo- 


EVELYN  INNES.  303 

ment  the  servant  brought  her  a  small  brown  paper  parcel. 
It  looked  like  a  book.  It  was  a  book.  She  opened  it. 
Monsignor  had  sent  her  a  book.  As  she  txirned  the  leaves 
she  remembered  the  parcels  of  books  from  Owen  which  she 
used  to  open  in  the  same  room,  sitting  in  the  same  chair. 
Sin  and  its  Consequences!  She  began  reading  it.  On  one 
point  she  was  sure,  that  sin  did  exist.  ...  If  we  felt  cer- 
tain things  to  be  wrong,  they  were  wrong;  at  least  they 
were  wrong  for  those  who  thought  them  wrong,  and  she 
had  never  been  able  to  feel  that  it  was  right  to  live  with  a 
man  to  whom  she  was  not  married.  Everyone  had  a  moral 
code.  Owen  would  not  cheat  at  cards,  and  he  thought  it 
mean  to  tell  lies — a  very  poor  code  it  was,  but  still  he  acted 
up  to  it.  She  did  not  know  how  Ulick  felt  on  such  mat- 
ters; his  beliefs,  though  numerous  and  picturesque,  sup- 
plied no  moral  code,  and  she  could  not  live  on  symbols, 
though  perhaps  they  were  better  than  Owen's  theories. 
Her  mistake  from  the  beginning  was  in  trying  to  acquire 
a  code  of  morals  which  did  not  coincide  with  her  feelings. 
But  the  teaching  in  this  book  did  coincide  with  her 
feelings.  Could  she  follow  it?  That  was  the  point. 
Could  she  live  without  a  lover?  Owen  thought  not.  She 
laughed  and  then  walked  about  the  room,  unable  to  shake 
off  a  dead  weight  of  melancholy.  Though  the  Church  was 
all  wrong,  and  there  was  no  God,  she  was  still  leading  a 
life  which  she  felt  to  be  wrong;  and  if  the  Church  were 
right,  and  there  was  a  resurrection,  her  soul  was  lost.  She 
took  up  the  book  and  read  till  her  fears  became  so  intense 
that  she  could  read  no  more,  and  she  walked  up  and  down 
the  room,  her  nerves  partially  unstrung.  In  the  evening 
she  talked  a  great  deal  and  rapidly,  apparently  not  quite 
aware  of  what  she  was  saying,  or  else  her  face  wore  a 
brooding  look ;  sometimes  it  awakened  a  little,  and  then  her 
eyes  were  fixed  on  Ulick. 

The  next  day  was  Friday,  and  as  the  train  service 
seemed  complex  and  inconvenient,  and  as  she  had  not  at 
Dulwich  a  suitable  dress  to  wear  at  the  concert,  she  de- 
cided to  sleep  at  Park  Lane  and  drive  to  Wimbledon  in  the 
afternoon.  She  left  her  father,  promising  to  return  to  him 
soon,  and  she  had  told  TTliek  that  she  thought  it  better  he 
should  return  by  train.  She  saw  that  he  had  noticed  the 
book  in  her  hand,  and  she  knew  that  he  understood  her  plea 
20 


304  EVELYN  IXNES. 

i 

that  she  did  not  wish  to  be  seen  driving  with  him  to  mean 
that  she  was  going  to  call  on  Monsignor  on  her  way  home. 
She  had  thought  of  calling  at  St.  Joseph's,  but,  unable  to 
think  of  a  sufficient  excuse  for  the  visit,  had  abandoned  the 
idea.  She  knew  the  time  was  not  opportune.  Monsignor 
would  be  hearing  confessions.  But  as  the  carriage  turned 
out  of  Camberwell,  she  remembered  that  it  would  be  polite 
to  thank  him  for  the  book,  and  leaning  forward  she  told  the 
coachman  to  drive  to  St.  Joseph's.  ...  So  after  all  she  was 
going  there.  .  .  .  Ulick  was  right. 

The  attendant  told  her  that  Monsignor  was  hearing 
confessions,  and  would  not  be  free  for  another  half  hour. 
She  drew  a  breath  of  relief,  for  this  second  visit  had  fright- 
ened her.  The  attendant  asked  her  if  she  would  wait.  She 
thought  she  would  like  to  wait  in  church.  She  desired  its 
collectedness,  its  peace.  But  the  thought  of  Monsignor's 
confessional  frightened  her,  and  she  thanked  the  attendant 
hurriedly,  and  went  slowly  to  her  carriage. 

When  Ulick  came  in  that  evening  she  was  seated  on 
the  corner  of  the  sofa  near  the  window.  The  moon  was 
shining  on  the  breathless  park,  and  a  moth  whirled  between 
the  still  flames  of  the  candles  which  burned  on  the  piano. 
lie  noticed  that  her  mood  was  subdued  and  reflective. 
She  liked  him  to  sit  by  her,  to  take  her  hand  and  tell  her 
he  loved  her.  She  liked  to  listen  to  him,  but  not  to  music ; 
nor  would  she  sing  that  evening,  and  his  questions  as  to 
the  cause  remained  unanswered.  Her  voice  was  calm  and 
even,  and  seemed  to  come  from  far  away.  There  was  a 
tremor  in  his,  and  between  whiles  they  watched  and  won- 
dered at  the  flight  of  the  moth.  It  seemed  attracted  equally 
by  darkness  and  light.  It  emerged  from  the  darkness, 
fluttered  round  the  perilous  lights  and  returned  again  to 
its  natural  gloom.  But  the  temptation  could  not  be  re- 
sisted, and  it  fell  singed  on  the  piano. 

"  We  ought  to  have  quenched  those  candles,"  Evelyn 
said. 

"It  would  have  found  others,"  Ulick  answered,  and  he 
took  the  maimed  moth  on  to  the  baleony  and  trod  it  out 
of  its  misery.  They  sat  there  under  the  lit  do  green  veran- 
diih.  and  in  the  colour  of  the  oloar  ni<rht  their  talk  turned 
on  the  stars  and  the  Zodiacal  signs.  1'lick  was  born  under 
the  sign  of  Aquarius,  and  all  the  important  events  of  his 


EVELYN  IKNES.  305 

life  began  when  Aquarius  was  rising.  Pointing  to  a  cer- 
tain group  of  stars,  he  said — 

"  The  story  of  Grania  is  no  more  than  our  story,  your 
story,  my  story,  and  the  story  of  Sir  Owen  Asher,  and  I 
had  written  my  poem  before  I  saw  you."  Then,  as  a  com- 
ment on  this  fact,  he  added,  "  We  should  be  careful  what 
we  write,  for  what  we  write  will  happen.  Grania  is  the 
beautiful  fortune  which  we  will  strive  for,  which  chooses 
one  man  to-day  and  another  to-morrow." 

The  idea  interested  her  for  a  moment,  but  she  was 
thinking  of  her  project  to  find  out  if,  like  Owen,  he  thought 
that  the  virtue  of  chastity  was  non-essential  in  women,  or 
if  the  other  virtues  were  dependent  upon  it.  But  how  to 
lead  the  conversation  back  to  this  question  she  did  not  for 
the  moment  know.  At  last  she  said — 

"  You  ask  me  to  love  you — but  to  be  my  lover  you  would 
have  to  surrender  all  your  spiritual  life,  that  which  is  most 
to  you,  that  which  makes  your  genius.  Do  you  think  it 
worth  it?" 

lie  hesitated,  then  answered  her  with  some  vague  refer- 
ence to  destiny,  but  she  guessed  the  truth.  As  free  as 
Owen  himself  from  ethical  scruples,  he  still  felt  that  we 
should  overcome  our  sensual  nature.  She  asked  herself 
why :  and  she  wondered  just  as  Owen  wondered  when  con- 
fronted by  her  religious  conscience.  They  looked  at  each 
other  long  and  gravely,  and  she  heard  him  say  that  a  sect 
of  mystics  to  which  he  belonged,  or  perhaps  it  was  whose 
society  he  frequented,  advised  the  married  state  but  with 
the  important  reservation  that  they  should  only  live  to 
aid  each  other  to  rise  to  a  higher  spiritual  plane,  antici- 
pating in  this  life  a  little  the  perfect  communion  of  spirit 
which  awaited  them  in  the  next.  But  such  theories  did 
not  appeal  to  Evelyn.  She  could  only  understand  the  re- 
nunciation of  the  married  state  for  the  sake  of  closer  in- 
timacy with  the  spiritual  life ;  and  she  was  more  interested 
when  he  told  her  of  the  cruelties,  the  macerations  and  the 
abstinences  which  the  Indian  seers  resorted  to,  so  that  the 
opacity  of  the  fleshly  envelope  might  be  diminished  and  let 
the  soul  through.  In  modern,  as  in  the  most  ancient  ages, 
with  the  scientist  as  with  the  seer,  marvels  and  prodigies 
are  reached  through  the  subjugation  of  the  flesh;  as  life 
dwindles  like  a  flame  that  a  breath  will  quench,  the  spirit 


30G  EVELYN  INNES. 

attains  its  maximum,  and  the  abiding  and  unchanging  life* 
that  lies  beyond  death  waxes  till  it  becomes  the  real  life. 

"Is  this  life,  then,  not  real?" 

"  If  reality  means  what  we  understand,  could  anything 
be  more  unreal  ?  " 

"  Then  you  do  believe  in  a  future  state  ? " 

"  Yes,  I  certainly  believe  in  a  future  state.  ...  So 
much  so  that  it  seems  impossible  to  believe  that  life  ends 
utterly  with  death." 

But  to  Evelyn's  surprise,  he  seemed  to  doubt  the  im- 
mortality of  this  future  state,  and  fell  back  on  the  Irish 
doctrine  which  holds  that  after  death  you  pass  to  the  great 
plain  or  land  under  the  sea,  or  the  land  over  the  sea,  or  the 
land  of  the  children  of  the  goddess  Dana. 

"  Even  now  my  destiny  is  accomplishing." 

The  true  Celt  is  still  a  pagan — Christianity  has  boon 
superimposed.  It  is  little  more  than  veneer,  and  in  the 
crises  of  life  the  Celt  turns  to  the  ancient  belief  of  his  race. 
But  did  Ulick  really  believe  in  Angus  and  Lir  and  the 
Great  Mother  Dana?  Perhaps  he  merely  believed  that  as 
a  man  of  genius  it  was  his  business  to  enroll  himself  in 
the  original  instincts  and  traditions  of  his  race. 

They  were  as  unquiet  as  cattle  before  an  approaching 
storm,  and  when  they  returned  to  the  drawing-room  it 
seemed  to  him  like  a  scene  in  a  theatre  about  to  be  with- 
drawn to  make  way  for  another  part  of  the  story.  Even 
while  looking  at  it,  it  seemed  to  have  receded  a  little1. 

At  last  it  was  time  for  Flick  to  go.  As  they  said  good- 
night, he  asked  her  if  he  should  come  to  lunch.  Rho  looked 
at  him,  uncertain  if  she  ought  to  take  him  to  the  concert 
at  all. 


xxvn. 

,  who  was  waiting  for  her  at  the  stops  of  tho 
hall  which  had  been  hired  for  the  concert,  introduced  her 
to  Father  Daly,  tho  convent  chaplain.  She  shook  hands 
with  him.  and  caught  siirlit  ef  him  ns  she  did  so.  It  wa-< 
but  a  passing  glance  of  a  small,  Monde  man  with  white  eye- 
la-hes.  seemingly  too  shy  to  raise  his  eyes;  and  she  was  too 


EVELYN  INNES.  307 

stringently  occupied  with  other  thoughts  to  notice  him 
further. 

Owing  to  her  exertions  and  Monsignor  Mostyn's,  a  large 
audience  had  been  collected,  and  though  the  month  was 
September,  there  were  many  fashionable,  influential  and 
musical  people  present. 

The  idea  of  the  band,  which  Evelyn  had  thought  of 
bringing  down  in  the  intention  of  giving  the  Forest  Mur- 
murs and  the  Bird  Music,  had  been  abandoned,  but  the 
finest  exponent  of  Wagner  on  the  piano  had  come  to  play 
the  usual  things :  the  closing  scene  of  the  "  Walkiire,"  the 
overture  of  the  "  Meistersinger  "  and  the  Prelude  of  "  Tris- 
tan." And,  mingled  with  the  students  and  apostles  from 
London,  were  a  goodly  number  of  young  men  and  women 
from  the  various  villas.  Every  degree  of  Wagner  culture 
was  present,  from  the  ten-antlered  stag  who  had  seen 
"  Parsif  al "  given  under  the  eye  of  the  master  to  the  skip- 
ping fawns  eagerly  browsing  upon  the  motives.  "  That 
is  the  motive  of  the  Ride;  that,  dear,  is  the  motive  of  the 
Fire;  that  is  the  motive  of  Slumber  in  the  Fire,  and  that 
is  the  motive  of  Siegfried,  the  pure  hero  who  will  be 
born  to  save  Valhalla."  The  class  above  had  some  knowl- 
edge of  the  orchestration.  "  You  see,"  said  a  young  man, 
pointing  to  the  score,  "  here  he  is  writing  for  the  entire 
orchestra."  "  Three  bars  further  on  he  is  writing  for  three 
violins  and  a  flute.  He  withdraws  his  instruments  in  a 
couple  of  bars;  it  would  take  anyone  else  five-and-twenty." 
At  a  little  distance  the  old  stag  who  had  never  missed  a  fes- 
tival at  Bayreuth  was  telling  the  young  lady  at  his  side 
that  the  "  Walkiire "  is  written  in  the  same  style  as  the 
"  Ilheingold  "  and  the  first  two  acts  of  "  Siegfried."  An- 
other distinct  change  of  style  came  with  the  third  act  of 
"  Siegfried  "  and  the  "  Dusk  of  the  Gods,"  which  were  not 
composed  till  some  years  later.  "  Ah,  that  wonderful  later 
style!  That  scale  of  half  notes!  Flats  and  sharps  intro- 
duced into  every  bar;  C,  C  sharp;  D,  D  sharp;  E,  F,  F 
sharp;  G,  G  sharp;  A,  B  flat,  B,  C.  In  that  scale,  or 
what  would  seem  to  be  that  scale,  he  balances  himself  like 
an  acrobat,  springing  on  to  the  desired  key  without  prep- 
aration," and  so  on  until  the  old  stug  was  interrupted  by  a 
friend,  a  huly  who  had  just  recognised  him.  As  she 
squeezed  past,  shu  stopped  to  tell  him  that  Wagner  had 


308  EVELYN  INNES. 

spoiled  her  for  all  other  music.  She  had  been  to  hear  Bee- 
thoven's u  Eroica  "  Symphony  once  more,  but  it  had  seemed 
to  her  like  a  pious  book. 

Evelyn  sang  "  Elsa's  Dream,"  "  Elizabeth's  Prayer  "  and 
the  "  Liebestod,"  and  when  she  was  recalled  at  the  end  of 
the  concert,  she  sang  Senta's  ballad  as  a  bonne  bouche, 
something  that  the  audience  had  not  expected,  and  would 
send  her  friends  away  more  than  ever  pleased  with  her. 

Her  father  had  not  been  able  to  come — that  was  a  dis- 
appointment— but  Ulick  had  accompanied  her  beautifully, 
following  her  voice,  making  the  most  of  it  at  every  mo- 
ment. When  she  left  the  platform,  she  took  both  his  hands 
and  thanked  him.  She  loved  him  in  that  instant  as  a  mu- 
sician and  as  a  mistress.  But  the  joy  of  the  moment,  the 
ecstasy  of  admiration,  was  interrupted  by  Monsignor  Mos- 
tyn  and  Father  Daly.  They  too  wished  to  thank  her.  In 
his  courtly  manner,  Monsignor  told  her  of  the  pleasure  her 
singing  had  given  him.  But  when  Father  Daly  mentioned 
that  the  mins  expected  her  to  tea,  her  courage  seemed  to 
slip  away.  The  idea  of  the  convent  frightened  her,  and 
she  tried  to  excuse  herself,  arguing  that  she  had  to  go  back 
to  London. 

"  If  you're  engaged  for  dinner,  I'm  afraid  there  will  not 
be  time,"  Monsignor  said.  She  looked  up,  and,  meeting  his 
eyes,  did  not  dare  to  lie  to  him. 

"  No ;  I'm  not  dining  out,  but  I  promised  to  take  Mr. 
Dean  back  in  my  carriage." 

"  Mr.  Dean  will,  I  am  sure,  not  mind  waiting." 

It  seemed  to  Evelyn  that  Monsignor  suspected  her 
relations  with  Ulick,  and  to  refuse  to  go  to  the  conv<  nt, 
she  thought,  would  only  confirm  him  in  his  suspicions.  So 
she  accepted  the  invitation  abruptly,  and  when  they  turned 
to  go,  she  said — 

"  My  carriage  is  here ;  I'll  drive  you,"  and,  at  the  same 
moment,  she  remembered  that  Ulick  was  waiting.  But 
she  felt  that  she  could  not  drive  back  to  London  with  him 
after  leaving  the  convent,  and  she  hoped  that  MonsiVimr 
would  not  correctly  interpret  the  disappointment  which  was 
plain  upon  his  face.  No;  he  must  go  back  by  train — no, 
there  would  be  no  use  his  calling  that  evening  at  Park 
Lane. 

She  wore  a  black  and  white  striped  silk  dress,  with  a 


EVELYN  INNES.  309 

sort  of  muslin  bodice  covered  with  lace,  and  there  was  a 
large  bunch  of  violets  in  her  waistband.  The  horses  were 
beautiful  in  the  sunshine,  and  their  red  hides  glistened  in 
the  long,  slanting  rays.  She  put  up  her  parasol  and  tried 
to  understand,  but  she  could  only  see  the  angles  of  houses, 
and  the  eccentricity  of  every  passer-by.  She  saw  very 
clearly  the  thin,  facial  line,  and  her  eyes  rested  on  the  touch 
of  purple  at  the  throat  to  mark  his  Roman  dignity.  Father 
Daly  sat  opposite,  rubbing  his  thumbs  like  one  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  superior.  He  was  not  ill-looking,  but  so  shy  that 
his  features  passed  unperceived,  and  it  was  some  time  be- 
fore she  saw  his  eyes;  they  were  always  cast  down,  and  his 
thin,  well-cut  nose  disappeared  in  his  freckled  cheeks.  The 
cloth  he  wofe  was  coarser  than  Consignor's ;  his  heavy 
shoes  contrasted  with  the  finely-stitched  and  buckled  shoes 
of  the  Papal  prelate. 

This  visit  to  the  convent  frightened  Evelyn  more  than 
the  largest  audience  that  had  ever  assembled  to  hear  her, 
and,  until  they  got  clear  of  the  town,  slue  was  not  certain 
she  would  not  plead  some  excuse  and  tell  the  coachman  to 
turn  back.  But  now  it  was  too  late.  The  carriage  ascended 
the  steep  street,  and,  at  the  top  of  it,  the  town  ended 
abruptly  at  the  edge  of  the  common.  On  one  side  was  a 
high  brick  wall,  hiding  the  grounds  and  gardens  of  the 
villas;  on  the  other  was  the  common,  seen  through  the 
leaves  of  a  line  of  thin  trees.  In  her  nervous  agitation,  she 
saw  very  distinctly — the  foreground  teeming  with  the  ani- 
mation of  cricket,  the  more  remote  parts  solitary,  the  wind- 
mill hovering  in  a  corner  out  of  the  way  of  the  sunset, 
and  two  horsemen  and  a  horsewoman  cantering  along  the 
edge  of  the  long  valley  into  which  the  plain  dropped  pre- 
cipitously. The  sun  sank  in  a  white  sky,  and  Evelyn 
caught  the  point  of  one  of  the  ribs  of  her  parasol,  so  that 
she  could  hold  it  in  a  better  position  to  shade  her  eyes,  and 
she  saw  how  the  houses  stretched  into  a  point,  the  last 
being  an  inn,  no  doubt  the  noisy  resort  of  the  cricketers  and 
the  landscape  painters.  There  was  a  painter  making  his 
way  towards  the  valley,  his  paint-box  on  his  back.  But  at 
that  moment  the  carriage  turned  into  a  lane  where  a  paling 
enclosed  the  small  gardens.  She  then  noticed  the  decaying 
pear  or  apple  tree,  to  which  was  attached  a  clothes-line. 
Enormous  sunflowers  weltered  in  the  dusty  corners.  The 


310  EVELYN  INNES. 

brick  was  crumbling  and  broken,  beautiful  in  colour,  "  And 
in  every  one  of  these  cottages  someone  is  living;  somcono 
is  laughing;  someone  will  soon  be  dead.  Good  heavens, 
how  strange !  " 

"  We  are  nearly  there." 

Evelyn  started;  it  was  Father  Daly  speaking  to  her. 
"  The  cottages  have  spoilt  the  appearance  011  this  side,  but 
the  view  is  splendid  from  the  other." 

The  lane  ascended  and  Evelyn  remembered  how  the 
house  stood  inside  a  wall  behind  some  trees,  looking  west- 
ward, the  last  southern  end  of  the  common  land  as  the 
windmill  was  the  last  northern  end.  There  had  been  iron 
gates  when  a  great  City  merchant  lived  in  the  Georgian 
house,  which  had  been  gradually  transformed  to  suit  the 
requirements  of  the  sisters.  The  melancholy  little  peal  of 
the  bell  hanging  on  a  loose  wire  sounded  far  away,  and  in 
the  interval  Evelyn  noticed  the  large  double  door,  from 
which  the  old  green  paint  was  peeling.  A  step  was  heard 
within,  and  the  little  shutter  which  closed  the  grated  peep- 
hole in  the  panel  of  the  door  was  drawn  back;  the  eyes 
and  forehead-band  of  a  nun  appeared  for  an  instant  in  tho 
opening;  and  then  with  a  rattle  of  keys  the  door  was 
hastily  opened  and  the  little  portress,  with  ruddy  checks 
and  a  shy  smile,  stood  aside  to  let  Evelyn  pass  in.  Sho 
kissed  the  hand  of  Monsignor  as  he  turned  to  her  with  a 
kindly  word  of  salutation.  "  The  lleverend  Mother  is  ex- 
pecting you,"  she  said,  her  agitation  being  due  to  the  im- 
portance of  the  occasion. 

"No  doubt  they  have  been  praying  that  I  might  sin;: 
well,  poor  dears,"  Evelyn  thought,  as  she  followed  tho  nun 
up  the  paved,  covered  way.  Through  the  iron  frame-work, 
woven  through  and  through  with  creepers  and  monthly 
roses,  she  caught  glimpses  of  the  partly-obliterated  carriage 
drive,  and  of  the  neatly-kept  flower  beds  filled  with  gerani- 
ums and  tall,  white  asters. 

In  the  hall  an  Adam's  ceiling  radiated  in  graceful  lines 
from  a  central  medallion,  and  before  a  statue  of  the  Sarrv.l 
Heart  a  light  was  burning.  Evelyn  remembered  how  tho 
poor  lay  sisters  laboured  to  keep  the  stone  floor  spotless, 
mid  it  was  into  the  parlour  <>n  the  left,  which  Evelyn  n - 
j n< -inhered  to  be  the  best  parlour,  that  Sister  Angela  ushered 

them. 


EVELYN  INNES.  311 

In  the  old  days,  before  a  sudden  crisis  on  the  Stock 
Exchange  had  obliged  the  owner  to  sell  the  house  for  much 
less  than  its  true  value  to  the  little  community  of  Sisters 
of  the  Passion  who  were  then  seeking  a  permanent  house, 
this  room,  round  which  Evelyn  and  the  two  priests  were 
looking  for  seats,  had  been  used  as  a  morning-room.  Three 
long  French  windows  looked  out  on  the  garden,  and  tho 
flowers  and  air  made  it  a  bright,  cheerful  room,  in  spite 
of  the  severe  pictures  on  the  walls.  She  recognised  at  once 
the  engraving  of  Leonardo's  "  Last  Supper "  which  hung 
over  the  solid  marble  chimney-piece  a  little  above  the  statue 
of  Our  Lady  of  Lourdes  and  the  two  blue  vases,  and  also 
the  pale,  distempered  walls,  and  the  coloured,  smiling  por- 
trait of  the  Pope,  and  a  full-length  photograph  of  Cardinal 
Manning,  signed  in  his  own  clear,  neat  handwriting. 

Evelyn  and  the  priests,  still  undecided  where  they  should 
sit,  looked  at  the  little  horsehair  sofa.  Monsignor  brought 
forward  for  her  one  of  the  six  high,  straight-backed  chairs, 
and  they  sat  at  the  circular  table  laid  out  with  severe  books ; 
a  volume  of  the  Lives  of  the  Saints  lay  under  her  hand, 
and  she  glanced  at  a  little  box  for  contributions.  She 
looked  at  the  priests  and  then  round  the  room,  striving  to 
penetrate  the  meaning  which  it  vaguely  conveyed  to  her — 
an  indescribable  air  of  scrupulous  neatness  and  cleanliness, 
a  sense  of  virginal  dulness.  But  suddenly  a  startling  sense 
of  the  incongruity  came  upon  her,  that  she,  the  opera- 
singer,  Owen  Asher's  mistress,  should  be  admitted  into  a 
convent,  should  be  received,  the  honoured  guest  of  holy 
women.  And  she  got  up,  leaving  the  two  priests  to  discuss 
the  financial  results  of  the  concert,  and  stood  gazing  out 
at  the  window.  There  was  the  rosery  with  the  lilac  bushes 
shutting  out  the  view  of  the  green  fields  beyond ;  and  this 
was  the  portion  of  the  garden  given  up  to  visitors  and 
boarders.  She  used  to  walk  there  during  the  retreat. 
Away  to  the  right  was  the  big,  sunny  garden  where  the 
nuns  went  for  their  daily  recreation.  By  special  permis- 
sion she  had  once  been  allowed  there;  she  remembered  tho 
sloping  lawns,  the  fringe  of  stately  elms,  and  over  them 
the  view  westward  of  Richmond  Park.  She  thought  of  the 
nuns  walking  under  their  trees,  half  ghost-like,  half  sybil- 
like  they  used  to  smn  in  their  grey  habits  with  their  long 
grey  veils  falling  picturesquely,  their  thoughts  fixed  on  au 


312  EVELYN  INNES. 

infinite  life,  and  this  life  never  seeming  more  to  them  than 
a  little  passing  shadow. 

Evelyn  returned  slowly  to  the  table.  The  priests  were 
talking  of  the  convent  choir;  Monsignor  turned  to  address 
a  question  to  her,  but  before  he  spoke  the  door  opened  and 
two  nuns  entered,  hardly  of  this  world  did  they  seem  in 
their  long  grey  habits. 

The  Reverend  Mother,  a  small,  thin  woman,  with  eager 
eyes  and  a  nervous,  intimate  manner,  hastened  forward. 
Evelyn  felt  that  the  Reverend  Mother  could  not  be  less 
than  sixty,  yet  she  conveyed  an  idea  of  youth.  Betwrvu 
her  rapid  utterances  an  expression  of  sadness  came  upon 
her  face,  instilled  through  the  bright  eyes,  and  Evelyn 
contrasted  her  with  Mother  Philippa,  the  sub-prioress. 
Even  the  touch  of  these  women's  hands  was  different.  There 
was  a  nervous  emotion  in  the  Reverend  Mother's  hand. 
Mother  Philippa's  hand  when  it  touched  Evelyn's  expressed 
somehow  a  simpler  humanity. 

She  was  a  short,  rather  stout,  homely -faced  English- 
woman, about  thirty-eight  or  forty,  such  a  woman  as  is 
met  daily  on  the  croquet  lawns  in  our  suburbs,  probably 
one  of  three  plain  sisters,  and  never  could  have  doubted 
her  vocation. 

"  I  cannot  tell  you  how  grateful  we  are,  Miss  Innes,  for 
what  you  have  done  for  us.  Monsignor  will  have  told  you 
of  the  straits  we  are  in.  .  .  .  But  you  are  an  old  friend,  I 
understand,  of  our  convent.  Mother  Philippa,  our  sub- 
prioress,  tells  me  you  made  a  retreat  here  seven  or  eight 
years  ago." 

"  I  don't  think  it  was  more  than  six  years,"  Mother 
Philippa  said,  correcting  the  Reverend  Mother.  "  I  re- 
member you  very  well,  Miss  Innes.  You  left  us  one  Easter 
morning." 

Evelyn  liked  her  plain,  matter-of-fact  face,  a  short  face 
undistinguished  by  any  special  characteristic,  yet  once  seen 
it  could  not  be  forgotten,  so  implicit  was  it  of  her  prac- 
tical mind  and  a  desire  to  serve  someone. 

"  That  silly  Sister  Agnes  has  forgotten  the  strawberry 
jam,"  she  said,  when  the  portress  brought  in  the  tea.  "  I 
will  run  and  frtdi  it;  T  sha'n't  be  a  moment." 

"Oh,  Mother  Philippa,  pray  don't  trouble;  I  prefer 
some  of  that  cuke." 


EVELYN  INNES.  313 

"No,  no,  I've  been  thinking  all  the  afternoon  of  this 
jam;  we  make  it  ourselves;  you  must  have  some." 

The  Reverend  Mother  apologised  for  having  put  sugar 
in  Evelyn's  tea,  for  she  remembered  now  that  Evelyn  had 
said  that  she  did  not  like  sugar;  and  Monsignor  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  occasion  to  reassure  the  Reverend  Mother 
that  the  success  of  the  concert  had  been  much  greater  than 
he  had  anticipated.  .  .  .  Thanks  to  Miss  Innes,  he  hoped 
to  be  able  to  hand  her  a  cheque  for  more  than  two  hundred 
pounds.  This  was  more  than  double  the  sum  she  had  hoped 
to  receive. 

"  We  shall  always  pray  for  you,"  she  said,  taking  Eve- 
lyn's hand.  "  I  cannot  tell  you  what  a  load  you  have  taken 
off  my  shoulders,  for,  of  course,  the  main  responsibility 
rests  upon  me." 

Evelyn  regretted  that  the  nuns  could  not  have  tea  with 
her,  and  wondered  whether  they  were  ever  allowed  to  par- 
take of  their  own  excellent  home-made  cake.  She  was  be- 
ginning to  enjoy  her  visit,  and  to  acquire  an  interest  in 
the  welfare  of  the  convent.  She  had  hitherto  only  devoted 
her  money  to  selfish  ends ;  but  now  she  resolved  that,  if  she 
could  help  it,  these  poor  sisters  should  not  be  driven  from 
their  convent.  Mother  Philippa  asked  her  suddenly  why 
she  had  not  been  to  see  them  before.  Evelyn  answered 
that  she  had  been  abroad.  But  living  abroad  meant  to  the 
nun  the  pleasure  of  living  in  Catholic  countries,  and  she 
was  eager  to  know  if  Evelyn  had  had  the  privilege  of  go- 
ing to  Rome.  She  smiled  at  the  nun's  innocent  curiosity, 
which  she  was  glad  to  gratify,  and  told  her  about  the  old 
Romanesque  churches  on  the  Rhine,  and  the  hundred 
marble  spires  of  the  Cathedral  of  Milan.  But  in  the  midst 
of  such  pleasant  conversation  came  an  unfortunate  ques- 
tion. Mother  Philippa  asked  if  Evelyn  had  travelled  with 
her  father.  Any  simple  answer  would  have  sufficed,  but 
she  lost  her  presence  of  mind,  and  the  "  No  "  which  came 
at  last  was  so  weak  and  equivocal  that  the  Reverend 
Mother  divined  in  that  moment  some  part  of  the  truth. 
Evelyn  sat  as  if  tongue-tied,  and  it  was  Monsignor  who 
came  to  her  rescue  by  explaining  that  she  had  sung  in 
St.  Petersburg,  Vienna,  Paris,  and  all  the  capitals  of 
Europe. 

"  You  must  excuse  us,"  the  Reverend  Mother  said,  "  for 


314  EVELYN  INNES. 

not  knowing,  but  these  things  do  not  penetrate  convent 
walls." 

The  conversation  dropped,  and  the  Reverend  Mother 
took  advantage  of  the  occasion  to  suggest  that  they  should 
visit  the  chapel. 

Mother  Philippa  walked  on  with  the  priests  in  front, 
leaving  Evelyn  with  the  Reverend  Mother. 

"  I  am  forced  to  walk  very  slowly  on  account  of  my 
heart.  I  hope  you  don't  mind,  Miss  Innes  ?  " 

"  Your  heart,  Reverend  Mother  ?  You  suffer  from  your 
heart?  I'm  so  sorry." 

The  Reverend  Mother  said  the  new  chapel  had  been 
built  by  the  celebrated  Catholic  architect,  and  mentioned 
how  the  last  three  years  of  the  Reverend  Mother's  life  had 
been  given  over  to  this  work.  Evelyn  knew  that  the  mould- 
ings and  carving  and  the  stained  glass  had  caused  the 
pecuniary  embarrassments  of  the  convent,  and  did  not 
speak  of  them.  She  was  told  that  the  architect  had  insist- 
ed that  every  detail  should  be  in  keeping,  and  understood 
that  the  thirteenth  century  had  proved  the  ruin  of  the  con- 
vent; every  minor  decoration  was  faithful  to  it — the  very 
patterns  stitched  in  wool  on  the  cushions  of  the  prie-dieu 
were  strictly  Gothic  in  character. 

Only  the  lower  end  of  the  nave  was  open  to  the  public; 
the  greater  part  was  enclosed  within  a  high  grille  of  gilded 
ironwork  of  an  elaborate  design,  through  which  Evelyn 
could  vaguely  dircern  the  plain  oak  stalls  of  the  nuns  on 
either  side,  stretching  towards  the  ornate  altar,  carved  in 
white  stone.  And  falling  through  the  pointed  windows, 
the  long  rays  slanted  across  the  empty  chapel ;  in  the  golden 
air  there  was  a  faint  sense  of  incense;  it  recalled  the  Bene- 
diction and  the  figures  of  the  departed  watchers  who  had 
knelt  motionless  all  day  before  the  elevated  Host.  The 
faintly-burning  lamp  remained  to  inspire  the  mind  with 
instinctive  awe  and  a  desire  of  worship.  And  as  always, 
in  the  presence  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  Evelyn's  doubts 
vanished,  and  she  knelt  in  momentary  prayer  beside  the 
two  nuns. 

Then  at  her  request  they  went  into  the  garden.  It  was 
the  part  of  the  convent  she  remembered  best.  She  re<-"i:- 
nisrd  at  once  tin  l»n>ad  terrace  walk  extending  (lie  full 
length  of  the  house,  from  the  new  wing  to  the  rose  garden 


EVELYN  INNES.  315 

whence  some  steps  led  to  the  lower  grounds.  They  were 
several  acres  in  extent  and  sloped  gently  to  the  south-west. 
The  Reverend  Mother  and  the  priests  had  turned  to  the 
left;  they  had  business  matters  to  discuss  and  were  going 
round  the  garden  by  the  outer  walk.  Evelyn  and  Mother 
Philippa  chose  the  middle  path.  The  sunset  was  before 
them,  and  the  wistfulness  of  a  distant  park  sinking  into 
blue  mist.  Evelyn  thought  that  in  all  her  travels  she  had 
never  seen  anything  so  lovely  as  the  convent  garden  in  that 
evening  light.  It  filled  her  soul  with  an  ecstatic  sense  of 
peace  and  joy,  and  a  sudden  passionate  desire  to  share  this 
life  of  calm  and  happy  seclusion  brought  tears  to  her  eyes. 
She  could  not  speak,  but  Mother  Philippa,  with  a  single, 
quick  glance,  seemed  instinctively  to  understand,  and  it 
was  in  silence  that  they  walked  down  a  grassy  path,  that  led 
between  the  narrow  beds  filled  with  a  gay  tangle  of  old-fash- 
ioned flowers,  to  a  little  summer-house.  Behind  the  sum- 
mer-house, at  the  bottom  of  the  garden,  was  a  broad  walk 
pleasantly  shaded  by  the  overhanging  branches  of  the 
elms. 

"  We  call  this  St.  Peter's  path,"  Mother  Philippa  said 
placidly,  "  and  for  his  feast  the  novices  put  up  his  statue 
in  the  summer-house  and  decorate  it  with  flowers.  They 
always  come  here  for  their  mid-day  recreation." 

"  Your  garden  is  quite  lovely,  Mother  Philippa ;  I  re- 
member it  all  so  well." 

They  wandered  on,  past  the  apple  and  plum  trees  laden 
with  fruit — they  made  a  pretty  orchard  in  one  corner;  and 
while  the  nun  passed  here  and  there  gathering  flowers, 
Evelyn  stood  gazing,  recalling  all  her  girlish  impressions. 

Almost  every  turn  in  the  walks  recalled  some  innocent 
aspiration,  some  girlish  feeling  of  love  and  reverence.  In 
every  nook  there  was  a  statue  of  the  Virgin,  or  a  cross 
whereby  the  thoughts  of  the  passer-by  might  be  recalled 
to  the  essential  object  of  her  life.  She  remembered  how 
she  had  stopped  one  morning  before  the  crucifix  which 
stood  on  the  top  of  some  rocks  at  the  end  of  the  garden. 
She  had  stopped  as  in  a  dream,  and  for  a  long  while  had 
stood  looking  at  the  face  of  the  dying  Redeemer,  praying 
to  his  Father  for  pardon  for  them  that  persecuted  him. 
She  had  felt  as  if  crazed  with  love,  and  had  walked  up  the 
pathway  feeling  that  the  one  thing  of  worth  in  the  world 


316  EVELYN  INNES. 

was  to  live  for  him  who  had  died  for  her.  But  she  had  be- 
trayed him.  She  had  chosen  Owen ! 

Mother  Philippa  added  another  flower  to  the  bouquet. 
She  looked  at  it,  and,  regarding  it  as  finished,  she  presented 
it  to  Evelyn. 

"  I  hope  I  did  not  say  anything  that  caused  you  pain  in 
the  parlour.  If  I  did  you  must  know  that  I  did  not  mean 
it.  I  hope  your  father  is  quite  well." 

"  Yes,  he's  quite  well.  You  did  not  offend  me,  Mother 
Philippa,"  she  said,  raising  her  eyes,  and  in  that  moment 
the  two  women  felt  they  understood  each  other  in  some 
mute  and  far-off  way. 

"  The  day  you  left  us  was  Easter  Sunday.  It  was  a 
beautiful  morning,  and  you  walked  round  the  rose  garden 
with  an  old  lady;  she  asked  you  to  sing,  and  you  sung  her 
two  little  songs." 

"  Yes,  I  remember ;  her  hair  was  quite  white,  and  she 
walked  with  a  stick." 

"I  am  glad  you  remember;  I  feared  that  you  had  for- 
gotten, aa  you  were  so  long  coming  back.  I  often  prayed 
for  you  that  you  might  come  and  see  us.  I  always  felt  that 
you  would  come  back,  and  when  one  feels  like  that  it  gen- 
erally happens." 

Evelyn  raised  her  eyes,  drawing  delight  from  the  nun's 
happy  and  contented  face.  She  experienced  an  exquisite 
idea,  a  holy  intimacy  of  feeling;  there  was  a  breathless 
exaltation  in  the  heavens  and  on  the  earth,  and  the  wild 
cry  of  a  startled  bird  darting  through  the  shrubberies 
sounded  like  a  challenge  or  defiance.  The  sunset  grew  nar- 
nower  in  the  slate-coloured  sky,  and  the  long  plain  of  the 
common  showed  under  two  bars  of  belated  purple.  The 
priests  and  the  Reverend  Mother  went  up  the  steps  and 
were  about  to  enter  the  convent.  Evelyn  and  Mother 
Philippa  lingered  by  a  distant  corner  of  the  garden  marked 
by  nine  tall  crosses. 

"  When  I  was  here  there  were  but  six.  I  remember 
Sister  Bonaventure,  thin  and  white,  and  so  weak  that  she 
could  not  move.  She  was  dying  far  from  all  she  knew,  yet 
she  was  quite  happy.  It  was  we  who  were  unhappy." 

"  She  was  happy,  for  her  thoughts  were  set  upon  Cod. 
How  could  she  be  otherwise  than  happy  when  she  knew  she 
was  going  to  him?  " 


EVELYN  INNES.  317 

A  few  minutes  after,  Evelyn  was  bidding  the  nuns  good- 
night. The  Reverend  Mother  hoped  that  when  she  made 
another  retreat  she  would  be  their  guest.  Mother  Philippa 
was  disappointed  they  had  not  heard  her  sing.  Perhaps 
one  day  she  might  sing  to  them.  They  would  see  how  it 
could  be  arranged.  Perhaps  at  Benediction  when  she  came 
to  make  another  retreat.  Evelyn  smiled,  and  the  carriage 
passed  into  the  night. 


XXVIII. 

THE  dawn  crept  through  her  closed  eyelids,  and  burying 
her  face  in  the  pillows,  she  sought  to  retain  the  receding 
dream. 

But  out  of  the  gloom  which  she  divined  and  through 
which  a  face  looked,  a  face  which  she  could  not  understand, 
but  which  she  must  follow,  there  came  a  sound  as  of  some- 
one moving.  The  dream  dissolved  in  the  sound,  she  opened 
her  eyes,  and  upon  her  lips  there  was  an  intense  terror,  and 
she  could  not  move.  .  .  .  Nor  did  she  dare  to  look,  and 
when  her  eyes  turned  a  little  towards  the  doorway  she  could 
not  see  beyond  it;  nor  could  she  remember  if  she  had  left 
the  door  ajar.  Behind  its  gloom  shadows  gathered,  and 
again  came  the  awful  sound  of  someone.  She  slipped 
under  the  bedclothes,  and  lay  there  stark  frozen  with  ter- 
ror. When  she  summoned  sufficient  courage  to  turn  in 
her  bed,  she  looked  towards  the  shadowy  doorway,  but  the 
passage  beyond  it  seemed  filled  with  nameless  foreboding 
shapes  from  an  under  world.  She  thought  that  perhaps  the 
sound  she  had  heard  had  been  occasioned  by  some  of  her 
clothes  slipping  from  a  chair  hardly  brought  relief.  She 
was  as  cold  as  a  corpse  in  a  grave.  The  next  time  she 
looked  towards  the  door  she  felt  that  it  was  her  duty  to 
explore  the  dark,  but  to  get  out  of  bed,  to  stand  in  that 
grey  room  and  look  into  the  passage  was  beyond  her  cour- 
age; she  could  only  lie  still  and  endure  the  sensation  of 
hands  at  her  throat  and  bated  breath  above  her  face. 

A  little  later  she  was  able  to  distinguish  the  pattern  of 
the  wall-paper,  and  as  she  followed  its  design  she  seemed  to 
see  human  life  all  black  and  intolerably  loathsome.  Behind 


313  EVELYN  INNES. 

the  beautiful  mask  she  recognised  a  leper.  She  strovo 
against  the  thought,  but  she  saw  the  creature  leer  so  plainly 
that  there  was  no  way  of  escaping  from  the  conviction  that 
what  she  had  accepted  as  life  was  but  a  mask  worn  by  a 
leper.  The  vision  persisted  for  what  seemed  a  long  whilo, 
and  when  it  faded  it  was  pictures  of  her  own  life  she  rend 
upon  the  wall;  her  soul  cried  out  against  the  miserable 
record  of  her  sins,  and  turning  on  her  pillow  she  saw  the 
dawn — the  inexorable  light  that  was  taking  her  back  to 
life,  to  sin,  and  all  the  miserable  routine  of  vanity  and  sel- 
fishness. She  would  have  to  begin  it  all  again.  She  had 
left  her  father,  though  she  knew  he  would  be  lonely  and 
unhappy  without  her.  She  had  lived  with  Owen  when  she 
knew  it  was  wrong,  and  she  had  acquiesced  in  his  blas- 
phemies, and  by  reading  evil  books  she  had  striven  to  un- 
dermine her  faith  in  God.  It  seemed  to  her  incredible 
that  anyone  should  be  capable  of  such  wickedness,  yet  she 
was  that  very  one;  she  had  committed  all  sins,  and  in  her 
very  great  misery  she  wished  herself  dead,  so  that  she 
might  think  no  more. 

With  eyes  wide  open  to  the  dawn  and  to  her  soul  she 
lay  hour  after  hour.  She  heard  the  French  clock  strike  six 
sharp  strokes,  and  unable  to  endure  her  hot  bed  any  longer, 
she  got  up,  slipped  her  arms  into  a  dressing-gown,  and  went 
down  to  the  drawing-room.  It  was  filled  with  a  grey  twi- 
light, and  the  street  was  grey-blue  and  silent  save  for  the 
sparrows.  Sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  sofa  she  remembered 
the  convent.  The  nuns  had  thought  her  a  good  Catholic, 
and  she  had  to  pretend  she  was.  Monsignor,  it  is  true,  had 
turned  the  conversation  and  saved  her  from  exposure.  But 
what  then?  She  knew,  and  he  knew,  everyone  knew; 
Lady  Ascott,  Lady  Mersey,  Lady  Duckle  very  probably 
didn't  care  but  appearances  had  to  be  preserved,  and  she  had 
to  tell  lies  to  them  all.  Her  life  had  become  a  network  of 
lies.  There  was  no  corner  of  her  life  into  which  she  could 
look  without  finding  a  lie.  She  had  been  faithful  to  no 
one,  not  even  to  Owen.  She  had  another  lover,  and  she 
had  sent  Owen  away  on  account  of  scruples  of  conscience! 
She  could  not  understand  herself;  she  had  taken  Ulick  to 
Dowlands  and  had  lived  with  him  there — in  her  father's 
house.  So  awful  did  her  life  seem  to  her  that  her  thoughts 
stopped,  and  she  became  possessed  of  the  desire  of  escape 


EVELYN  INXES.  319 

which  takes  a  trapped  animal  and  forces  it  to  gnaw  off  one 
of  its  legs.  She  had  promised  Ulick  to  create  the  part  of 
Grania.  She  had  promised,  and  she  hated  not  keeping  her 
promise.  He  would  say  it  was  impossible  for  her  to  re- 
main on  the  stage  and  live  a  virtuous  life;  he  would  tell 
her  that  she  must  refuse  to  sec  Owen.  She  was  still  very 
fond  of  him,  and  would  like  to  see  him  sometimes.  What 
reason  could  she  give  to  her  friends  for  refusing  to  see 
him?  what  reason  could  she  give  for  leaving  the  stage? — 
to  do  so  would  set  everyone  talking.  Everyone  would  want 
to  know  why;  Lady  Ascott,  Lady  Mersey,  all  her  friends. 
How  was  she  to  separate  herself  from  her  surroundings? 
"Wherever  she  went  she  would  be  known.  Her  friends 
would  follow  her,  lovers  would  follow  her,  temptations  would 
begin  again,  would  she  have  strength  to  resist?  "Not  al- 
ways," was  the  answer  her  heart  gave  back.  A  great  des- 
pair fell  upon  her,  and  she  walked  up  the  room.  Stopping 
at  the  window  she  looked  out,  and  all  reform  of  her  life 
seemed  to  her  impossible.  She  was  hemmed  in  on  every 
side.  If  she  could  only  think  of  it  no  more!  She  had 
adopted  an  evil  life,  and  must  pursue  it  to  the  end.  She 
must  be  wretched  in  this  life,  and  be  punished  eternally  in 
the  next. 

Hearing  a  footstep  on  the  stairs,  she  drew  herself  behind 
the  door,  and  when  the  sound  passed  downstairs  she  tried 
to  reason  with  herself.  After  all,  the  housemaid  would 
have  been  merely  surprised  to  find  her  in  the  drawing- 
room  at  that  hour.  She  could  not  have  guessed  why  she 
was  there.  She  ran  up  the  stairs,  and  when  she  had  closed 
the  door  of  her  room  she  stood  looking  at  the  clock.  It 
was  not  yet  seven,  and  Merat  did  not  come  to  her  room 
till  half-past  nine.  She  must  try  to  get  to  sleep  between 
this  and  then.  She  lay  with  her  eyes  closed,  and  did  not 
perceive  that  a  thin,  shallow  sleep  had  come  upon  her,  for 
she  continued  to  think  the  same  thoughts;  fear  of  God 
and  hatred  of  sin  assumed  even  more  terrifying  propor- 
tions, and  she  started  like  a  hunted  animal  when  Merat 
came  in  with  her  bath. 

"  I  hope  Mademoiselle  is  not  ill  ?  " 
"  No,  I  am  not  ill,  only  I  have  not  slept  at  all."' 
In  order  to  distract  her  thoughts,  she  went:  for  a  walk 
after  breakfast  in  the  park,  but  any  casual  sight  sufficed 
21 


320  EVELYN  INNES. 

to  recall  them  to  the  one  important  question.  She  could 
not  see  the  children  sailing  their  toy  boats  without  think- 
ing her  ambitions  were  as  futile,  and  a  chance  glimpse  of 
a  church  spire  frightened  her  so  that  she  turned  her  back 
and  walked  the  other  way.  In  the  afternoon  she  tried  to 
interest  herself  in  some  music,  but  her  hands  dropped  from 
the  keys,  so  useless  did  it  appear  to  her.  At  four  she  was 
dreaming  of  Owen  in  an  armchair.  The  servant  suddenly 
announced  him,  and  he  came  in,  seemingly  recovered  from 
his  gout  and  his  old  age.  His  figure  was  the  perfect  ele- 
gance of  a  man  of  forty-three,  and  in  such  beautiful  bal- 
ance that  an  old  admiration  awakened  in  her.  His  "  waist- 
coats and  his  valet,"  she  thought,  catching  sight  of  tin- 
embroideries  and  the  pale,  subdued,  terrified  air  of  the 
personal  servant.  The  valet  carried  a  parcel  which  Evelyn 
guessed  to  be  a  present  for  her.  It  was  a  tea-service  of 
old  Crown  Derby  that  Owen  had  happened  upon  in  Bath, 
and  they  spent  some  time  examining  its  pale  roses  and  gilt 
pattern.  She  expected  him  to  refer  to  their  last  inter- 
view, but  he  avoided  doing  so,  preferring  to  take  it  for 
granted  that  he  still  was  her  lover,  and  he  did  so  without 
giving  her  sufficient  occasion  to  correct  him  on  this  point. 
He  was  affectionate  and  intimate;  he  sat  beside  her  on 
the  sofa,  and  talked  pleasantly  of  the  benefit  he  had  de- 
rived from  the  waters,  of  the  boredom  of  hotel  life,  and  of 
a  concert  given  in  aid  of  charity. 

"But  that  reminds  me,"  he  said;  "T  heard  about  the 
Wimbledon  concert,  and  was  sorry  you  did  not  write  to  me 
for  a  subscription.  Lady  Merrington  told  nio  about  the 
nuns;  they  spent  all  their  money  building  a  chapel,  and 
had  not  enough  to  cat." 

"  I  didn't  think  you  would  care  to  subscribe  to  a  con- 
vent." 

"Now,  why  did  you  think  that?  Poor  devils  of  nuns, 
shut  up  in  a  convent  without  enough  to  eat.  Of  course 
I'll  subscribe;  I'll  send  them  a  cheque  for  ten  pounds  to- 
morrow." 

This  afternoon,  whether  by  accident  or  design,  he  said 
no  word  that  might  jar  on  her  religious  scruples;  he  oven 
appeared  to  sympathise  with  religious  life,  and  admitted 
that  the  world  was  not  much,  and  lo  renounce  the  world 
was  sublime.  The  conversation  paused  and  he  said,  "I 


EVELYN  INNES.  321 

think  the  tea-service  suits  the  room.  You  haven't  thanked 
me  for  it  yet,  Evelyn." 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  ought  to  accept  any  more  presents 
from  you.  I  have  accepted  too  much  as  it  is." 

She  was  conscious  of  her  feebleness.  It  would  have 
been  better  to  have  said,  "  I  am  another  man's  mistress," 
but  she  could  not  speak  the  words,  and  he  asked  if  they 
might  have  tea  in  the  new  service.  She  did  not  answer, 
so  he  rang,  and  when  the  servant  left  the  room  he  took 
her  hands  and  drew  her  closer  to  him.  "I  am  another  man's 
mistress,  you  must  not  touch  me,"  rang  in  her  brain,  but 
he  did  not  kiss  her,  and  the  truth  was  not  spoken. 

"  Lady  Duckle  is  still  at  Homburg,  is  she  not  ? "  he 
asked,  but  he  was  thinking  of  the  inexplicable  event  each 
had  been  in  the  other's  life.  They  had  wandered  thus  far, 
now  their  paths  divided,  for  nothing  endures.  That  is  the 
sadness,  the  incurable  sadness!  He  was  getting  too  old 
for  her;  in  a  few  more  years  he  would  be  fifty.  But  he 
had  hoped  that  this  friendship  would  continue  to  the  end 
of  the  chapter.  And  while  he  was  thinking  these  things, 
Evelyn  was  telling  him  that  Lady  Duckle  had  met  Lady 
Mersey  at  Homburg,  and  had  gone  on  with  her  to  Lucerne, 
where  they  hoped  to  meet  Lady  Ascott. 

"  You  are  going  to  shoot  with  Lord  Ascott  next  month  ?  " 
she  said,  and  looking  at  him  she  wondered  if  their  relations 
were  after  all  no  more  than  a  chance  meeting  and  parting. 
While  he  spoke  of  Lord  Ascott's  pheasant  shooting,  she  felt 
that  whatever  happened  neither  could  divorce  the  other 
from  his  or  her  faults. 

"  How  beautiful  the  park  is  now,  I  like  the  view  from 
your  windows.  I  like  this  hour;  a  sense  of  resignation  is 
in  the  air." 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  the  sky  is  beautifully  calm,"  and  she 
experienced  a  return  of  old  tendernesses,  and  she  had  no 
scruple,  for  he  did  not  make  love  to  her,  and  did  not  kiss 
her  until  he  rose  to  leave.  Then  he  kissed  her  on  the  fore- 
head and  on  the  cheek,  and  refrained  from  asking  if  they 
were  reconciled. 

Never  had  he  been  nicer  than  he  had  been  that  after- 
noon, and  she  dared  not  look  into  her  heart,  for  she  did  not 
wish  to  think  that  she  would  send  him  away.  Why  should 
she  send  him  away?  why  not  the  other?  She  could  not 


322  EVELYN  INNES. 

answer  this  question;  she  only  knew  that  the  choice  had 
fallen  upon  Owen.  She  must  send  him  away,  but  what 
reasons  should  she  give?  She  felt  that  her  conduct  that 
afternoon  had  rendered  a  complete  rupture  in  their  rela- 
tions more  difficult  than  ever.  It  was  as  she  lay  sleepless 
in  bed  long  after  midnight  that  the  solution  of  the  diffi- 
culty suddenly  sounded  in  her  brain.  She  must  write  to 
him  saying  that  he  might  come  to  see  her  once  more,  but 
that  it  must  be  for  the  last  time.  This  was  the  way  out  of 
her  difficulty,  and  she  turned  over  in  her  bed,  feeling  she 
might  now  get  to  sleep.  But  instead  of  sleep  there  began 
the  very  words  of  this  last  interview,  and  her  brain  teemed 
with  different  plans  for  escape  from  her  lover.  She  saw 
herself  on  ocean  steamers,  in  desert  isles,  and  riding  wild 
horses  through  mountain  passes.  Barred  doors,  changes  of 
name,  all  means  were  passed  and  reviewed;  each  was  in 
turn  dismissed,  and  the  darkness  about  her  bed  was  like  a 
flame.  There  was  no  doubt  that  she  was  doomed  to  an- 
other night  of  insomnia.  The  bell  of  the  French  clock 
struck  three,  and,  quite  exhausted,  she  got  up  and  walked 
about  the  room.  "  In  another  hour  I  shall  hear  the  screech 
of  the  sparrow  on  the  window-sill,  and  may  lie  awake  till 
Merat  comes  to  call  me."  She  lay  down,  folded  her  arms, 
closed  her  eyes  and  began  to  count  the  sheep  as  they  came 
through  the  gate.  But  thoughts  of  Owen  began  to  loom 
up,  and  in  spite  of  her  efforts  to  repress  them,  they  grew 
more  and  more  distinct.  The  clock  struck  four,  and  's<mn 
after  it  seemed  to  her  that  the  darkness  was  tightening. 
For  a  long  while  she  did  not  dare  to  open  her  eyes.  At 
last  she  had  to  open  them,  and  the  grey-blue  light  was  in- 
describably mournful.  Again  her  life  seemed  small,  black 
and  evil.  She  jumped  out  of  bed,  passed  her  arms  iuf<>  a 
tea-gown,  and  paced  the  room.  She  must  see  Owen.  She 
must  tell  him  the  truth.  Once  he  knew  the  truth  he  would 
not  care  for  her,  and  that  would  make  the  parting  easier 
for  both.  She  did  not  believe  that  this  was  so,  but  she  had 
to  believe  something,  and  she  went  down  to  the  drawing- 
room  and  wrote — 

"  DEAR  OWK\ — You  may  come  and  see  me  to-morrow 
if  you  care  to.  I  am  afraid  that  your  visit  will  not  be  a 
pleasant  one.  I  don't  think  I  could  be  an  agreeable  com- 


EVELYN  INNES.  323 

pan  ion  to  anyone  at  present,  but  I  cannot  send  you  away 
without  explaining  why.  However  painful  that  explana- 
tion may  be  to  you,  there  is  at  all  events  this  to  be  said, 
that  it  will  be  doubly  painful  to  me.  I  am  not,  dear  Owen, 
ungrateful;  that  you  should  think  me  so  is  the  hardest 
punishment  of  all,  and  I  am  sorry  I  have  not  made  you 
happier.  I  know  other  women  don't  feel  as  I  do,  but  I 
can't  change  myself.  I  feel  dreadfully  hypocritical  writing 
in  this  strain.  I  less  than  anyone  have  a  right  to  do  so, 
especially  now.  But  you  will  try  to  understand.  You 
know  that  I  am  not  a  hypocrite  at  heart.  I  am  deter- 
mined to  tell  you  all,  and  you  will  then  see  that  no  course 
is  open  to  me  but  to  send  you  away.  Even  if  you  were  to 
promise  that  we  should  be  friends  we  must  not  see  each 
other,  but  I  don't  think  that  you  would  care  to  see  me  on 
those  terms.  I  should  have  stopped  you  yesterday  when 
you  took  my  hand,  when  you  kissed  me,  but  I  was  weak 
and  cowardly.  Somehow  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  tell 
you  the  truth.  I  shall  expect  you  in  the  afternoon,  and 
will  tell  you  all.  I  am  punishing  myself  as  well  as  you. 
So  please  don't  try  to  make  things  more  difficult  than  they 
are. — Yours  very  sincerely,  EVELYN  INNES." 

Leaving  this  letter  with  directions  that  it  should  be 
posted  at  once,  weary,  and  with  her  brain  as  clear  as  crystal, 
she  threw  herself  upon  her  bed.  Folding  her  arms,  she 
closed  her  eyes,  and  strove  to  banish  thoughts  of  Owen 
and  the  confession  she  was  to  make  that  afternoon.  But 
when  sleep  gathered  about  her  eyes,  the  memory  of  past 
sins,  ;it  first  dense,  then  with  greater  clearness,  shone 
through,  ;iiid  the  traitor  sleep  moved  away.  Or  she  would 
suddenly  find  herself  in  the  middle  of  the  interview,  the 
entire  dialogue  standing  clear  cut  in  her  brain,  she  could 
almost  see  the  punctuation  of  every  sentence.  Once  more 
she  counted  the  sheep  coming  through  the  gate;  she  count- 
ed and  counted,  until  her  imagination  failed  her,  and  in 
spite  of  herself,  her  eyes  opened  upon  the  dreaded  room. 
She  heard  the  clock  strike  nine.  Merat  would  knock  at  her 
door  in  another  half-hour,  and  she  lay  waiting,  fearing  her 
arrival.  But  at  last  her  face  grew  quieter,  she  seemed  to 
see  Consignor  vaguely,  she  could  not  tell  where  nor  how 
he  had  come  to  her,  but  she  heard  him  saying  distinctly 


324  EVELYN  INNES. 

that  she  must  never  sing  Isolde  again.  He  seemed  to  bar 
her  way  to  the  stage,  and  the  music  that  was  to  bring  her 
on  sounded  in  her  ears,  yet  she  could  see  the  shape  of  her 
room  and  its  furniture.  A  knock  came  at  the  door,  and 
she  was  surprised  to  find  that  she  had  been  asleep. 

Her  brain  was  a  ferment;  it  seemed  as  if  it  were  about 
to  fall  out  of  her  head;  she  feared  the  day,  its  meal  times 
and  the  long  hours  of  morning  and  evening  sunshine.  The 
idea  of  the  coming  interview  with  Owen  was  intolerable. 
Her  brain  was  splitting,  she  could  not  think  of  what  she 
would  say.  But  her  letter  had  gone!  After  breakfast  she 
felt  a  little  rested,  and  went  into  the  park  and  remained 
there  till  lunch  time,  dimly  aware  of  the  open  air,  the  wav- 
ing of  branches,  the  sound  of  human  voices.  Beyond  these, 
and  much  more  distinct,  was  a  vision  of  her  evil  life,  and 
the  cold,  stern  face  of  the  priest  watching  her.  She  wan- 
dered about,  and  then  hastened  back  to  Park  Lane.  Owen 
had  been.  He  had  left  word  that  he  would  call  again 
about  three  o'clock.  He  would  have  stayed,  but  had  an  en- 
gagement to  lunch  with  friends.  She  lunched  alone,  and 
was  sitting  on  the  corner  of  the  sofa,  heavy-eyed  and  weary, 
but  determined  to  be  true  to  her  resolutions,  when  the 
servant  announced  him.  'He  came  in  hurriedly,  his  hat  in 
his  hand,  and  his  eyes  went  at  once  to  where  she  was  >it- 
ting.  He  saw  she  was  looking  ill,  but  there  were  more  im- 
portant matters  to  speak  of. 

"I  came  at  once,  the  moment  I  got  your  letter.  I 
should  have  waited,  but  I  was  lunching  with  Lady  Merring- 
ton.  Such  terribly  boring  people  were  there.  It  was  all  I 
could  do  to  prevent  myself  from  rushing  out  of  the  room. 
But,  Evelyn,  what  are  you  determined  to  tell  me?  I 
thought  we  parted  good  friends  yesterday.  You  have  been 
thinking  it  over.  .  .  .  You're  going  to  send  me  away."  He 
sat  beside  her,  he  held  his  hat  in  both  hands,  and  looked 
perplexed  and  worried.  "  But,  Evelyn  " — she  sat  like  a 
figure  of  stone,  there  was  no  colour  in  her  cheeks  nor  any 
expression  in  her  eyes  or  mouth — "  Evelyn,  I  am  afraid  you 
are  ill,  you  are  pale  as  a  ghost." 

"  I  did  not  sleep  last  night,  nor  the  night  before." 

"  Two  nights  of  insomnia  are  enough  to  break  anyone 
up.  I'm  very  sorry,  Evelyn  dear — you  ou-lit  to  go  away." 
Her  silence  perplexed  him,  and  he  said,  "  Evelyn.  I  have 


EVELYN  INNES. 

come  to  ask  you  to  be  my  wife.  Don't  keep  me  in  sus- 
pense. Will  you  give  up  the  stage  and  be  my  wife?  Why 
don't  you  answer?  Oh,  Evelyn,  is  it — are  you  married?" 

"  No,  I  am  not  married,  Owen.  I  don't  suppose  I  ever 
shall  be.  If  you  had  wished  to  marry  me " 

"  I  know  all  that,  that  if  I  wanted  to  marry  you  I  ought 
to  have  done  so  long  ago.  But  you  said  you  were  deter- 
mined to  tell  me  something — what  is  it?"  The  expression 
of  her  face  did  not  change;  her  lips  moved  a  little,  she  cast 
down  her  eyes,  and  said,  "  I've  got  another  lover." 

He  felt  that  he  ought  to  get  very  angry,  and  that  to  do 
so  was  in  a  way  expected  of  him.  He  thought  he  had 
better  say  something  energetic,  lest  she  should  think  that 
he  did  not  care  for  her.  But  he  was  so  overcome  by  the 
thought  of  his  escape — it  was  now  no  longer  possible  for 
her  to  send  him  away — that  he  could  think  of  nothing.  It 
even  seemed  to  him  that  everything  was  happening  for  the 
best,  for  he  did  not  doubt  that  she  would  soon  tire,  if  she 
were  not  tired  already,  of  this  musician,  and  then  he  would 
easily  regain  his  old  influence  over  her.  Even  if  she  did 
marry  this  musician,  she'd  get  tired  of  him,  and  then  who 
knows — anything  were  better  than  that  she  should  go  over 
to  that  infernal  priest.  While  rejoicing  in  the  defeat  of 
his  hated  rival,  he  was  anxious  that  Evelyn  should  not 
perceive  what  was  passing  in  his  mind,  and,  afraid  to  betray 
himself,  lie  said  nothing,  leaving  her  to  conjecture  what 
she  pleased  from  his  silence. 

"I  don't  intend  to  defend  my  conduct;  it  is  indefen- 
sible. .  .  .  But,  Owen,  I  want  you  to  believe  that  I  did  not 
lie  to  you.  Ulick  was  not  my  lover  when  I  went  to  see  you 
that  evening  in  Berkeley  Square." 

It  was  necessary  to  say  something,  and,  feeling  that  any 
Unguarded  word  would  jeopardise  his  chances,  he  said — 

"  I  think  I  told  you  that  night  that  you  liked  Ulick 
Dean.  I  can  quite  understand  it;  he  is  a  nice  fellow 
enough.  Are  you  going  to  marry  him?" 

"  No,  I  am  not  in  love  with  him — I  never  was.  I  liked 
him  merely." 

"  I  can  understand ;  all  those  hours  you  spent  with  him 
studying  Isolde." 

"Yes,  it 'was  that  music,  it  gets  on  one's  nerves.  .  .  . 
But,  Owen,  there  is  no  excuse." 


326  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  We'll  think  no  more  about  it,  Evelyn.  I  am  glad 
you  do  not  love  him.  My  greatest  fear  was  to  lose  you  al- 
together." 

She  was  touched  by  his  kindness,  as  he  expected  she 
would  be,  and  he  sat  looking  at  her,  keeping  as  well  as  he 
could  all  expression  from  his  face.  He  thought  that  he  had 
got  over  the  greatest  difficulty,  and  he  congratulated  him- 
self on  his  cleverness.  The  question  now  was,  what  was  the 
next  move? 

"  You  are  not  looking  very  well,  Evelyn.  You  don't 
sleep — you  want  a  change.  The  Medusa  is  at  Cowcs;  what 
do  you  say  for  a  sail  ? " 

"  Owen,  dear,  I  cannot  go  with  you." 

"  You  love  that  fellow  Ulick  Dean  too  much." 

"  I  don't  love  him  at  all.  .  .  .  Owen,  you  will  never 
understand." 

"  Understand !  "  he  cried,  starting  to  his  feet,  "  this  is 
madness,  Evelyn.  I  see!  I  suppose  you  think  it  wrong 
to  have  two  lovers  at  the  same  time.  Grace  has  come  to 
you  through  sin.  You  are  going  to  get  rid  of  both  of  us." 

Evelyn  sat  quite  still  as  if  hypnotised.  She  was  very 
sorry  for  him,  but  for  no  single  moment  did  she  think  she 
would  yield. 

Suddenly  he  asked  her  why  he  should  be  the  one  to  bo 
sent  away,  and  he  pleaded  the  rights  of  old  friendship,  go- 
ing even  so  far  as  to  suggest  that  even  if  she  liked  Ulick 
better  she  should  not  refuse  to  see  him  sometimes. 

"  I  have  no  right  to  seem  shocked  at  anything  yon  may 
say.  I  told  you  that  Ulick  was  my  lover,  but  I  did  not  say 
he  W.MS  going  to  remain  my  lover." 

"Then  what  are  you  going  to  do?  Will  that  priest  get, 
hold  of  you?  I  know  him — I  was  at  Eton  with  him.  Me 
always  was — "  and  Owen  muttered  something  under  his 
breath.  "  Surely,  Evelyn,  you  are  not  thinking  of  going 
to  confession.  After  all  my  teaching  has  it  come  to  this? 
My  God !  "  he  said,  as  he  walked  up  the  room,  "  I'd  sooner 
Ulick  got  you  than  that  hypocritical  fool.  You'll  be  wasted 
on  religion." 

"  From  your  point  of  view,  I  suppose  I  shall  be." 

They  talked  on  and  on,  saying  what  they  had  said  many 
times  before.  Sometimes  Evelyn  seemed  to*  follow  his 
arguments,  and  thinking  that  he  was  convincing  her,  he 


EVELYN  INNES.  327 

would  break  off  suddenly.  "  Well,  will  you  come  for  a 
cruise  with  me  on  the  Medusa?  I'll  ask  all  your  friends — 
we'll  have  such  a  pleasant  time." 

"  No,  Owen,  no,  it's  impossible,  you  don't  understand. 
I  don't  blame  you — you  never  will  understand." 

And  they  looked  at  each  other  like  wanderers  standing 
on  the  straits  dividing  two  worlds.  The  hands  of  the  clock 
pointed  to  five  o'clock.  The  servants  had  taken  the  tea- 
service  away.  Owen  had  urged  Evelyn  not  to  abandon  the 
stage;  he  had  urged  the  cause  of  Art;  he  had  urged 
that  her  voice  was  her  natural  vocation;  he  had  spoken  of 
their  love,  and  of  the  happiness  they  had  found  in  each 
other — the  conversation  had  drifted  from  an  argument  con- 
cerning the  authenticity  of  the  Gospels  to  a  lake  where  they 
had  spent  a  season  five  years  ago.  She  saw  again  the  reedy 
reaches  and  the  steep  mountain  shores.  They  had  been 
there  in  the  month  of  September,  and  the  leaves  of  the 
vine  were  drooping,  and  the  grapes  ready  for  gathering. 
They  had  been  sweethearts  only  a  little  while,  and  the 
drives  about  the  lake  was  one  of  his  happiest  memories. 

"  Evelyn,  you  cannot  mean  that  you  will  never  see  me 
again  ?  " 

His  eyes  filled  with  tears,  and  she  turned  her  head  aside 
so  that  she  might  not  see  them. 

"  Life  is  very  difficult,  Owen ;  try  not  to  make  it  more 
difficult." 

"  Evelyn,  I  had  hoped  that  our  friendship  would  have 
continued  to  the  end.  I  never  cared  for  any  other  woman, 
and  when  you  are  my  age  and  look  back,  you  will  find  that 

tliriv  is  one,  [  don't  say  I  shall  be  the  one,  who "  His 

voice  trembled,  and  he  passed  his  hand  across  his  eyes. 

"  It's  very  sad,  Owen,  and  life  is  very  difficult.  .  .  . 
There  is  this  consolation  for  you,  that  I  am  not  sending 
you  away  on  account  of  anyone  else.  Ulick  must  go  too." 

"  That  does  not  make  it  any  better  for  me.  By  God, 
I'd  sooner  that  he  got  you  than  that  infernal  religion. 
Evelyn,  Evelyn,  it  is  impossible  that  an  idea,  a  mere  idea, 
should  take  you  from  me.  It  is  inhuman,  unnatural,  I 
can't  realise  it !  " 

"  Owen,  you  must  go  now." 

"  Evelyn,  I  don't  understand.  It  is  just  as  if  you  told 
me  you  were  tallow,  and  would  melt  if  there  was  a  fire 


328  EVELYN  1NNES. 

lighted.  But  never  mind,  I'll  accept  your  ideas — I'll  accept 
anything.  Let  us  be  married  to-morrow." 

She  was  frightened  in  the  depths  of  her  feelings,  and 
seemed  to  lose  all  control  of  her  will. 

"  Owen,  I  cannot  marry  you.  Why  do  you  ask  me  ? 
You  know  it  is  now  more  than  ever  impossible." 

His  face  changed  expression,  but  he  was  urged  forward 
by  an  irresistible  force  that  seemed  to  rise  up  from  the  bot- 
tom of  his  being  and  blind  his  eyes. 

"  You  don't  love  him,  it  was  only  a  caprice ;  we'll  think 
no  more  about  it." 

She  sought  the  truth  in  her  soul,  but  it  seemed  to  elude 
her.  She  was  like  a  blind  person  in  a  vague,  unknown 
space,  and  not  being  able  to  discover  the  reason  why  she 
refused  him,  she  insisted  that  Ulick  was  the  reason. 

"  Are  you  going  to  marry  him  ?  " 

"  No,  I  don't  think  so." 

"  Don't  you  wish  to  ?     He  is  your  father's  friend." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"  Destiny,  I  suppose." 

The  question  uas  too  profound  for  discussion,  and  they 
sat  silent  for  a  long  while.  A  chance  remark  turned  their 
talk  upon  Balzac,  and  Owen  spoke  about  Le  Lys  dans  la 
Vallee,  and  she  asked  him  if  he  remembered  the  day  he  had 
first  spoken  to  her  about  Balzac. 

"  It  was  the  day  you  took  me  to  the  races,  our  first  week 
in  Paris." 

"And  a  few  days  afterwards  I  took  you  to  Madame 
Savelli's.  She  told  you  that  you  had  the  most  beautiful 
voice  she  had  ever  heard.  You  could  not  speak;  you  were 
so  excited  that  I  was  obliged  to  send  you  off  for  a  drive  in 
the  Bois.  Do  you  remember  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  remember.  .  .  .  You  were  always  very  good  to 
me." 

They  talked  on  and  on,  conscious  of  the  hands  of  the 
clock  moving  on  towards  their  divided  lives.  When  it 
struck  seven,  she  said  he  must  go,  but  he  begged  to  be 
allowed  to  stay  till  a  quarter  past,  and  in  this  last  period  he 
urged  that  their  separation  should  not  be  final.  He  pleaded 
that  a  time  should  be  set  on  his  alienation,  and  ended  by 
extracting  from  her  a  sort  of  half  promise  that,  she  would 
allow  him  to  come  and  see  her  in  three  months.  But  he 


EVELYN  INNES.  329 

and  she  knew  that  they  would  never  meet  again,  and  the 
sad  thought  floated  up  into  their  eyes  as  they  said  good-bye. 
She  went  to  the  window,  wondering  if  he  would  stay  a 
moment  to  look  back.  He  stood  on  the  edge  of  the  pave- 
ment, and  she  watched  him  unmoved.  She  was  thinking 
of  Monsignor,  and  of  how  he  would  approve  of  her  conduct. 
He  would  tell  her  that  what  she  liked  and  disliked  was  no 
longer  the  question.  Owen  still  stood  on  the  kerb,  but  she 
did  not  even  see  him.  Her  eyes  looked  into  the  sunset,  and 
she  was  thrilled  with  a  mysterious  joy,  a  joy  that  came 
from  the  heart,  not  from  passions,  and  it  was  exquisitely 
subtle  as  the  light  that  faded  in  the  remote  west. 


XXIX. 

11  K  walked  up  Park  Lane,  staring  now  and  then  at  the 
quaint  balconies  from  a  mere  habit  of  admiration.  But  all 
were  indifferent  to  him,  even  the  one  supported  by  the  four 
Empire  figures.  It  did  not  seem  that  anything  in  the  world 
could  interest  him  again,  and  he  wondered  how  he  would 
get  through  the  years  that  remained  to  him  to  live.  He 
was  tired  of  hunting  and  shooting;  he  had  seen  everything 
iliriv  was  to  be  scon;  he  had  been  round  the  world  twice; 
it  did  not  seem  to  him  that  he  would  ever  care  for  another 
woman,  and  he  reflected  with  pride  that  he  had  been  faith- 
ful to  Evelyn  for  six  years.  "  But  I  shall  never  see  her 
again,"  his  heart  wailed;  "in  three  months  she'll  be  a  dif- 
ferent woman;  she  won't  want  to  see  me,  she'll  find  some 
excuse.  That  infernal  priest  will  refuse  his  absolution 

if ':  Owen  stopped  suddenly.  Far  away  a  little  pink 

cloud  dissolved  mysteriously.  "  In  another  second,"  he 
thought,  "  it  will  be  no  more."  In  the  Green  Park  the 
trees  rocked  in  the  soft  autumn  air,  and  lie  noticed  that 
now  and  then  a  leaf  broke  from  its  twig,  fluttered  across 
the  path,  and  fell  by  the  iron  railings. 

"  Well,  Ashor,  how  is  it  that  you  are  in  town  at  this 
time  of  year  ?  " 

It  was  a  club  acquaintance,  one  of  the  ordinary  con- 
ventional men  that  Owen  met  by  the  dozen  in  every  one 


300  EVELYN  INNES. 

of  his  clubs,  a  man  whose  next  question  would  surely  be, 
"  How  are  your  two-year-olds  ?  " 

"  I  should  like  to  hear  that  they  had  all  broken  their 
legs,"  Owen  answered  through  his  teeth,  and  the  colour 
mounted  in  his  cheeks. 

"  Asher  always  was  mad  .  .  .  now  he  seems  madder 
than  ever.  What  did  he  mean  by  saying  he  wished  his 
two-year-olds  had  all  broken  their  legs  ?  " 

Owen  lingered  on  the  kerb,  inveighing  against  the 
stupidity  of  his  set.  He  had  thought  of  dining  at  the  Turf 
Club,  but  after  this  irritating  incident  he  felt  that  he  dared 
not  risk  it;  if  anyone  were  to  speak  to  him  again  of  his 
two-year-olds,  he  felt  he  would  not  be  able  to  control  him- 
self. Suddenly  he  thought  of  a  friend.  He  must  speak  to 
someone.  .  .  .  He  need  mention  no  names.  He  put  up  his 
stick  and  stopped  a  hansom.  A  few  minutes  took  him  to 
Hoarding's  rooms." 

The  unexpectedness  of  the  visit,  and  the  manner  in 
which  Owen  strode  about  the  room,  trying  to  talk  of  the 
things  that  he  generally  talked  about,  while  clearly  think- 
ing of  something  quite  different,  struck  Hani i UK  a*  un- 
usual, and  a  suspicion  of  the  truth  had  just  begun  to  dawn 
upon  him,  when,  breaking  off  suddenly,  Owen  said — 

"  Swear  you'll  never  speak  of  what  I  am  going  to  say — 
and  don't  ask  for  names." 

"  I'll  tell  no  one,"  said  Harding,  "  and  the  name  does 
not  interest  me." 

"It's  this:  a  woman  whom  I  have  known  many  years — 
a  friendship  lhat  I  thought  would  go  ""  ((>  the  <'"d  of  the 
chapter — told  me  to-day  that,  it  was  all  finished,  that  she 
never  wanted  to  sec  rne  airain." 

"A  friendship!     Were  you  her  lover?" 

"What  does  it  matter?  Suffice  it  to  say  that  she  was 
my  dearest  friend,  and  now  I  have  lost  her.  She  has  been 
taken  from  me,"  he  said,  throwing  his  arms  into  the  air. 
It  was  a  superb  gesture  of  despair,  and  Harding  could  not 
help  smiling. 

"  So  Evelyn  has  left  him.  I  wonder  for  whom  ?  "  Then, 
with  as  much  sympathy  as  he  could  call  into  his  voice, 
he  asked  if  the  lady  had  given  any  reason  for  this  sudden 
dismissal. 

"Only  that  she  thinks  it  wrong;  we've  boon  discussing 


EVELYN  INNES.  331 

it  all  the  afternoon.  It  has  made  me  quite  ill ;  "  and  he 
dropped  into  a  chair. 

Harding  knew  perfectly  well  of  whom  they  were  speak- 
ing, and  Owen  knew  that  he  knew,  but  it  seemed  more 
decorous  to  refrain  from  mentioning  names,  and  Evelyn's 
soul  was  discussed  as  if  it  were  an  abstract  quantity,  and  all 
indication  of  the  individual  incarnation  was  avoided.  Owen 
admitted  that,  notwithstanding  many  seeming  contradic- 
tory appearances,  Evelyn  had  always  thought  it  wrong  to 
live  with  him,  and  yet,  notwithstanding  her  being  very 
fond  of  him,  she  had  never  shown  any  eagerness  to  be 
married.  "  Of  course  it  is  very  wrong,"  she  would  say  in 
her  own  enchanting  way,  "  but  a  lover  is  very  exciting,  and 
a  husband  always  seems  dull.  I  don't  think  you'd  be  half 
as  nice  as  a  husband  as  you  are  as  a  lover."  The  recital 
of  the  Florence  episode  interested  Plarding,  but  it  was  the 
opposition  of  the  priest  and  the  musician  that  made  the 
story  from  his  point  of  view  one  of  the  most  fascinating 
he  had  ever  heard  in  his  life. 

They  dined  together  in  an  old-fashioned  club,  in  a  room 
lighted  by  wax  candles  in  silver  candlesticks.  Tall  mir- 
rors in  gold  frames  reflected  the  black  mahogany  furniture. 
In  answer  to  Owen,  who  lamented  that  Evelyn  was  sacri- 
ficing everything  for  an  idea,  Harding  spoke,  and  with 
his  usual  conscious  exaltation,  of  the  Christian  martyrs, 
the  Spanish  Inquisition,  and  then  Robespierre  seemed  to 
him  the  most  striking  example  of  what  men  will  do  for 
an  idea.  He  mentioned  a  portrait  by  Greuze  in  which 
Robespierre  appears  as  a  beautiful  young  man.  "  Such  a 
face,"  he  said,  "  as  we  might  imagine  for  a  lover  or  a  poet, 
a  sort  of  Lucien  de  Rubempre,  but  in  his  brain  there  was  a 
coll  containing  the  pedantic  idea,  and  for  this  idea  he  cut 
off  a  thousand  heads,  and  would  have  cut  off  a  million. 
The  world  must  conform  to  his  idea,  or  it  was  a  lost  world." 

Towards  the  end  of  dinner,  the  head  waiter  interrupted 
their  conversation.  He  lingered  about  the  table,  anxious  to 
hear  something  of  Lord  Ascott's  two-year-olds;  but,  in  the 
smoking-room  over  their  coffee,  they  returned  to  the  more 
vital  question — the  sentimental  affections.  They  were 
agreed  that  the  pleasure  of  love  is  in  loving,  not  in  being 
loved,  and  their  reasons  were  incontrovertible. 

"  It  is  the  letters,"  said  Harding,  "  that  we  write  at 


332  EVELYN    IXNKS. 

three  in  the  morning  to  tell  her  how  enchanting  she  was; 
it  is  the  flowers  we  send,  the  words  of  love  that  we  speak 
in  her  ears,  that  are  our  undoing.  So  long  as  we  are  in- 
different, they  love  us." 

"  Quite  true.  At  first  I  did  not  care  for  her  as  much 
as  she  did  for  me,  and  I  noticed  that  as  soon  as  I  began 
to  fall  in  love ' 

"  To  aspire,  to  suffer.  Maybe  there  is  no  deep  pleasure 
in  contentment.  In  casting  you  out  she  has  given  you  a 
more  intense  life." 

Owen  did  not  seem  to  understand.  His  eyo  wandered, 
then  returning  to  Harding,  he  said — 

"We  cannot  worship  and  be  worshipped;  is  that  wh:it 
you  mean?  If  so,  I  agree  with  you.  But  I'd  sooner  !<>s:> 
her  as  I  have  done  than  not  have  told  her  that  I  l<>\vd 
her.  .  .  .  There  never  was  anyone  like  her.  Sympathy, 
understanding,  appreciation  and  enthusiasm!  it  was  like 
living  in  a  dream.  Good  God !  to  think  that  that  priest 
should  have  got  her;  that,  after  all  my  teaching,  she  should 
think  it  wrong  to  have  a, lover!  I  don't  know  if  you  know 
of  whom  we  are  speaking.  If  you  suspect,  I  can't  help  it, 
but  don't  ask  me.  I  shouldn't  speak  of  her  at  all;  it  is 
wrong  to  speak  of  her,  even  though  I  don't  mention  her 
name,  but  it  is  impossible  to  help  it.  If  you  arc  proud  of  a 
woman  you  must  speak  of  her — and  I  was  so  proud  of  her. 
It  is  very  easy  to  be  discreet  when  you  are  ashamed  of 
them,"  he  added,  with  a  laugh.  "When  I  had  nothing  t,t 
do,  I  used  to  sit  down  and  think  of  her,  and  I  used  to 
say  to  myself  that  if  I  were  the  king  of  the  whole  world 
I  could  not  get  anything  better.  But  it  is  all  over  now." 

"  Well,  you've  had  six  years,  the  very  prime  of  her  life." 

"That's  true;  you're  very  sympathetic,  Harding.  Have 
another  cigarette.  I  was  faithful  to  her  for  six  years—  y«n 
can't  understand  that,  but  it  is  quite  true,  and  I  had  plenty 
of  chances,  but,  when  I  came  to  think  of  it,  it  always 
seemed  that  I  liked  her  the  best." 

At  the  same  moment  Kvel.vn  stood  on  her  balcony, 
watching  the  evening.  The  park  was  breathless,  and  the 
sky  rose  high  and  pale,  and  ealm  as  marble.  But  the  h<>n-<-- 
se. med  to  speak  unutterable  things,  and  she  closed  tin- 
window  and  stood  looking  across  the  room.  Then  walking 
towards  the  sofa  as  if  she  were  going  to  sit  down,  she  ilung 


EVELYN  INNES.  333 

herself  upon  it  and  buried  her  face  among  the  cushions. 
She  lay  there  weeping,  and  when  she  raised  her  face  she 
dashed  the  tears  from  her  streaming  cheeks,  but  this  pause 
was  only  the  prelude  to  another  passionate  outbreak,  and 
she  wept  again,  finding  in  tears  fatigue,  and  in  fatigue 
relief.  She  sobbed  until  she  could  sob  no  more,  and  so 
tired  was  she  that  she  no  longer  cared  what  happened; 
very  tired,  and  her  head  heavy,  she  went  upstairs,  eager 
for  sleep.  And  closing  her  eyes  she  felt  a  delicious  numb- 
ing of  sense,  a  dissolution  of  her  being  into  darkness.  .  .  . 
But  in  her  waking  there  was  a  consciousness,  a  fore- 
boding of  a  nameless  dread,  of  a  heavy  weight  upon  her, 
and  when  the  foreboding  in  her  ears  grew  louder,  she 
sfi-mc'd  to  know  that  an  irreparable  calamity  had  happened, 
and  trying  to  fathom  it,  she  saw  the  wall-paper,  and  it  told 
her  she  was  in  her  own  room.  She  seemed  to  be  trying  to 
read  something  on  it,  but  what  she  was  trying  to  read  and 
understand  seemed  to  move  away,  and  her  brain  laboured 
in  anxious  pursuit.  Her  eyes  opened,  and  she  remembered 
her  interview  with  Owen.  She  had  sent  him  away,  she 
understood  it  all  now,  she  had  sent  Owen  away !  She  had 
told  him  that  Ulick  was  her  lover,  so  even  if  he  were  to 
come  back  it  never  could  be  the  same  as  it  was.  Why  had 
sh<^  told  him  about  Ulick?  It  was  bad  enough  to  send  him 
away,  but  she  had  degraded  his  memory  of  her,  and  the 
thought  that  she  had  not  deceived  him,  but  had  told  him 
what  he  otherwise  might  never  have  known,  did  not  console 
her  just  then.  She  lay  quite  still,  face  to  face  with,  seeing 
as  it  were  into  the  eyes  of  the  Irreparable.  Never  again 
would  a  man  hold  her  in  his  arms,  saying,  "  Darling,  I  am 
very  fond  of  you !  "  Take  love  out  of  her  life,  and  what 
barrenness,  what  weariness!  After  all,  she  was  only  scven- 
and-twenty,  and  the  thought  came  upon  her  that  she  might 
have  waited  until  she  was  a  little  older.  The  word  "  never  " 
rang  in  her  ears,  and  she  realised  as  she  had  not  done  before 
all  that  a  lover  meant  to  her — romance,  adventure,  the 
brilliancy  and  sparkle  of  life.  What  was  life  without  the 
delightful  exeitement  of  the  chase,  the  delicious  doubts  re- 
garding the  hidden  significance  of  every  look  and  word, 
then  the  rapture  of  the  final  abandonment?  She  tried  to 
think  that  the  life  she  proposed  to  relinquish  had  not 
brought  her  happiness,  but  she  could  not  put  back  memory 


334  EVELYN  INNES. 

of  the  enchanting  days  she  had  spent  with  her  lovers.  Oh, 
the  intense  hours  of  anticipation !  and  the  wonderful  recol- 
lections! rich  and  red  as  the  heart  of  a  flower!  Such  rap- 
ture seemed  to  her  to  be  worth  the  remorse  that  came  after, 
and  the  peace  of  mind  that  a  chaste  life  would  secure,  a 
poor  recompense  for  dreary  days  and  months.  She  realised 
the  length  and  the  colour  of  the  time — grey  week  after  grey 
week,  blank  month  after  blank  month,  void  year  after  void 
year!  And  she  always  getting  a  little  older,  getting  older 
in  a  drab,  lifeless  time,  in  a  lifeless  life,  a  weary  life  filled 
with  intolerable  craving!  She  had  endured  it  once,  a  ft -cl- 
ing as  if  she  wanted  to  go  mad.  .  .  .  She  picked  up  her 
letters. 

Among  the  letters  she  received  that  morning  was  ono 
from  Ulick.  He  was  still  in  Paris,  and  would  not  be  back 
for  another  week  or  ten  days.  He  had  been  lonely,  he  had 
missed  her,  and  looked  forward  to  their  meeting.  He  told 
her  about  the  opera,  the  people  he  had  met,  and  what  they 
had  said  about  his  music.  But  the  tender  affection  of  his 
letter  was  not  to  her  mind.  Why  did  he  not  say  that  he 
longed  to  take  her  in  his  arms  and  kiss  her  on  the  lips? 
Knitting  her  brows,  she  tried  to  think  that  if  he  had  writ- 
ten more  passionately  she  would  have  taken  the  train  and 
gone  to  him.  She  had  sent  Owen  away  on  account  of 
scruples  of  conscience,  and  a  life  of  chastity  extended  in- 
definitely before  her.  But  who  was  this  woman  to  whom 
Ulick  had  shown  his  music,  and  who  had  said  that  if  any- 
thing happened  to  prevent  Evelyn  Innes  from  singing  ihc 
part,  she  hoped  that  Ulick  would  give  it  to  her?  "Why 
should  she  have  thought  that  something  would  happen  to 
prevent  Evelyn  Innes  from  creating  Orania?  Jla<l  Ulick 
suggested  it  to  her?  But  how  could  Ulick  know?  She 
tried  to  think  if  she  had  ever  told  him  she  was  tired  uf 
the  stage.  Perhaps  he  had  consulted  the  stars  and  had 
divined  her  future.  This  woman  seemed  to  know  that. 
something  might  happen,  and  something  was  happening, 
there  could  be  no  doubt  about  that. 

There  was  no  doubt  that  she  was  tired  of  the  stage,  but 
perhaps  that  was  on  account  of  hard  work,  perhaps  she  re- 
quired a  rest;  in  two  or  three  monllis  she  might  return 
eagerly  to  the  study  of  ("Jrania;  for  the  sake  of  Ulick,  she 
might  remain  on  the  stage  till  she  had  established  the  sue- 


EVELYN  INNES.  335 

cess  of  his  opera.  This  might  be  if  she  and  Ulick  were  not 
lovers.  She  had  promised  Owen  that  she  would  not  keep 
him  for  a  lover,  but  that  did  not  mean  that  she  would  not 
sing  his  opera.  If  she  didn't,  another  woman  would,  some 
wretched  singer  who  did  not  understand  the  music,  and  it 
would  be  a  failure.  Ulick  would  hate  her;  he  would  be- 
lieve that  her  refusal  to  sing  his  opera  was  a  vile  plan  to  do 
him  an  injury.  He  did  not  know  what  conscience  meant — 
he  only  understood  the  legends  and  the  Gods !  She  laughed, 
and  a  moment  afterwards  was  submerged  in  difficulties. 
Her  conduct  would  seem  more  incomprehensible  to  him 
than  it  did  to  Owen;  she  did  not  wish  him  to  hate  her, 
but  he  would  hate  her,  and  to  avoid  seeing  her  he  would 
not  go  to  Dowlands,  and  so  she  would  rob  her  father  of  his 
friend — the  friend  who  had  kept  him  company  when  she 
deserted  him.  There  was  another  alternative.  If  she  liked 
him  well  enough  to  be  his  mistress,  she  should  like  him  well 
enough  to  be  his  wife.  But  knowing  that  she  would  not 
marry  him,  she  took  up  her  other  letters  and  began  reading 
them. 

Lady  Duckle  liked  Homburg;  everyone  was  there,  and 
she  hoped  Evelyn  would  not  be  detained  in  London  much 
longer.  The  Duke  of  Berwick  had  proposed  to  Miss  Beale, 
and  Lady  Mersey  was  always  about  with  young  Mr.  So-and- 
So.  Evelyn  didn't  read  it  all.  She  lay  back  thinking,  for 
this  letter,  about  things  that  interested  her  no  longer,  had 
led  her  thoughts  back  to  self,  and  she  inquired  why  in  the 
midst  of  all  her  enjoyments  she  had  felt  that  her  real  life 
was  elsewhere,  why  she  had  always  known  that  sooner  or 
later  the  hour  would  come  when  she  would  leave  the  things 
which  she  enjoyed  so  intensely.  The  idea  of  departure  had 
never  quite  died  down  in  her,  and  she  had  always  known 
that  she  would  be  one  day  quite  a  different  woman.  She 
had  often  had  glimpses  of  her  future  self  and  of  her  future 
life,  but  the  moment  she  tried  to  distinguish  what  was 
there,  the  vision  faded.  Even  now  she  knew  that  she  would 
not  marry  Ulick,  and  this  not  because  she  would  refuse  her 
father  anything,  but  merely  because  it  was  not  to  be.  Her 
eyes  went  to  the  piano,  but  on  the  way  there  she  stopped  to 
ask  herself  a  question.  Why  was  she  in  London  at  this 
time  of  year?  She  knew  why  she  did  not  care  to  go  to 
Homburg — because  she  was  tired  of  society.  But  why  did 
22 


330  EVELYN  INNES. 

she  not  go  to  some  quiet  seaside  place  where  she  could 
enjoy  the  summer  weather?  She  would  like  to  sit  on  the 
beach  and  hear  the  sea.  Her  soul  threatened  to  give  back 
a  direct  answer,  and  she  dismissed  the  question. 

She  paced  the  empty  alley  facing  the  Bayswater  Road. 
No  one  was  there  except  a  nursemaid  and  a  small  child, 
and  she  and  they  shared  the  solitude.  She  could  see  the 
omnibuses  passing,  and  hear  the  clank  of  the  heavy  harness, 
and  seated  on  one  of  the  seats  she  drew  diagrams  on  the 
gravel  with  her  parasol.  Owen  said  there  was  no  meaning 
in  life,  that  it  was  no  more  than  an  unfortunate  accident 
between  two  eternal  sleeps.  But  she  had  never  been  able 
to  believe  that  this  was  so;  and  if  she  had  sought  to  disbe- 
lieve in  God,  it  was  as  Monsignor  had  said,  because  she 
wished  to  lead  a  sinful  life.  And  if  she  could  not  believe 
in  annihilation,  there  could  be  no  annihilation  for  her, 
that  was  Ulick's  theory.  The  name  of  her  lover  brought  up 
the  faded  Bloomsbury  Square,  the  litter  of  manuscript  and 
the  books  on  magic !  She  had  tried  to  believe  in  readings 
of  the  stars.  But  such  vague  beliefs  had  not  helped  her. 
In  spite  of  all  her  efforts,  the  world  was  slipping  behind 
her;  Owen  and  Ulick  and  her  stage  career  seemed  very 
little  compared  with  the  certainty  within  her  that  she  was 
leading  a  sinful  life,  and  she  was  only  really  certain  of 
that.  The  omnibuses  in  the  road  outside,  the  railways 
beyond  the  town,  the  ships  upon  the  sea,  what  were  these 
things  to  her — or  yet  the  singing  of  operas  ?  The  only 
thing  that  really  mattered  was  her  conscience. 

Then,  almost  without  thinking  at  all,  in  a  sort  of  stupor, 
she  walked  over  the  hill  and  descended  the  slope,  and  ICMH- 
irig  over  the  balustrade  she  looked  at  the  fountains.  But 
the  splashing  of  water  explained  nothing,  and  she  turned  to 
resume  her  walk;  and  she  reflected  that  to  send  away  her 
lovers  would  avail  her  nothing,  unless  she  subsequently  con- 
fessed her  sins  and  obtained  the  priest's  absolution.  Mon- 
signor would  tell  her  that  to  send  away  her  lovers  was  not 
sufficient,  and  he  would  refuse  his  absolution  unless  she 
promised  him  not  to  see  them  any  more.  That  promise 
she  could  not  give,  for  she  had  promised  TJlick  that  she 
would  sing  Grania,  and  she  had  promised  Owen  to  see  him 
in  three  months.  It  seemed  to  her  both  weak  and  shameful 
to  break  either  of  these  promises.  The  spire  of  Kensington 


EVELYN  INNES.  337 

Church  showed  sharp  as  a  needle  on  a  calm  sky,  and  it  was 
in  a  sudden  anguish  of  mind  that  she  determined  that  her 
repentance  must  be  postponed.  She  had  considered  the 
question  from  every  point  of  view,  and  could  not  at  once 
reverse  her  life;  the  change  must  come  gradually.  '  She 
had  sent  Owen  away;  that  was  enough  for  the  present. 

The  numerous  pea-fowls  had  gathered  in  a  bare  roosting 
tree  on  an  opposite  hillside,  and  the  immense  tails  of  the 
cock-birds  swept  the  evening  sky.  Owen  would  have  cer- 
tainly compared  it  to  a  picture  by  Honderhoker.  The 
ducks  clambered  out  of  the  water,  keeping  their  cunning 
black  eyes  fixed  on  the  loitering  children  whom  the  nurse- 
maid was  urging  to  return  home.  In  Kensington  Gar- 
dens, the  glades  were  green  and  gold,  and  for  some  little 
while  Evelyn  watched  the  delicate  spectacle  of  the  fading 
light,  and  insensibly  she  began  to  feel  that  a  life  of  spir- 
itual endeavour  was  the  only  life  possible  to  her,  and  that, 
however  much  it  might  cost  her,  she  must  make  the  effort  to 
attain  it.  Even  to  feel  that  she  was  capable  of  desiring 
this  ideal  life  was  a  delicious  happiness,  and  her  thoughts 
flowed  on  for  a  long  while,  unmindful  of  practical  difficul- 
ties. Suddenly  it  came  upon  her  like  a  sudden  illumina- 
tion, that  sooner  or  later  she  would  have  to  make  all  the 
sacrifices  that  this  ideal  demanded,  that  she  would  not 
have  any  peace  of  mind  until  she  had  made  them.  But 
even  at  the  same  moment  the  insuperable  difficulties  of 
the  task  before  her  appeared,  and  she  despaired.  The  last 
obstacle  was  money.  As  she  crossed  the  road  dividing 
Kensington  Gardens  from  Hyde  Park,  she  understood  that 
the  simple  fact  of  owing  a  few  thousand  pounds  rendered 
her  immediate  retirement  from  the  stage  impossible.  She 
had  insisted  that  the  money  she  required  to  live  in  Paris 
and  study  with  Madame  Savelli  should  be  considered  as  a 
debt,  which  she  would  repay  out  of  her  first  earnings.  But 
Owen  had  laughed  at  her.  He  had  refused  to  accept  it,  and 
he  would  never  tell  her  the  rent  of  the  house  in  the  Rue 
Balzac;  he  had  urged  that  as  he  had  made  use  of  the 
house  he  could  not  allow  her  to  pay  for  it.  In  the  rough, 
she  supposed  that  a  thousand  pounds  would  settle  her  debt 
for  the  year  they  had  spent  in  Paris. 

Since  then  she  had,  however,  insisted  on  keeping  herself, 
but  now  that  she  came  to  think  it  out,  it  did  not  seem  that 


338  EVELYN  INNES. 

she  had  done  much  more  than  pay  her  dressmaker's  bills. 
She  grew  alarmed  at  the  amount  of  her  debt,  which  seemed 
in  her  excited  imagination  so  large  that  all  her  savings, 
amounting  to  about  six  or  seven  thousand  pounds,  would 
not  suffice  to  pay  it  off.  Most  of  her  jewellery  had  been 
given  to  her  by  Owen;  there  was  the  furniture,  the  pic- 
tures and  the  china  in  Park  Lane!  She  would  have  to 
return  all  these,  and  the  horses,  too,  if  she  wished  to  pay 
everything,  and  the  net  result  would  be  that  she  would 
mortally  offend  the  man  who  had  done  everything  for  her. 
She  knew  he  would  not  forgive  her  if  she  sent  back  the 
presents  he  had  made  her,  nor  could  she  blame  him,  and 
she  decided  that  such  complete  restitution  was  impossible. 
But,  for  all  she  knew,  Monsignor  might  insist  upon  it. 
If  he  did?  She  felt  that  she  would  go  mad  if  she  did  not 
put  aside  these  scruples,  which  she  knew  to  be  in  a  measure 
fictitious,  but  which  she  was  nevertheless  unable  to  shake 
off.  And  she  could  not  help  thinking,  though  she  knew 
that  such  thoughts  were  both  foolish  and  unjust,  that  Owen 
had  purposely  contrived  this  thraldom.  Then  there  was 
only  one  thing  for  her  to  do,  to  go  to  Paris  after 
Ulick.  ...  A  moment  after  there  came  a  sinking  feeling. 
She  knew  that  she  could  not.  But  what  was  she  to  do? 
All  this  uncertainty  was  loosening  her  brain.  .  .  .  She 
might  go  to  Monsignor  and  lay  the  whole  matter  before 
him  and  take  his  advice.  But  she  knew  if  she  went  to 
him  she  must  confess.  Better  that,  she  thought,  than  that 
the  intolerable  present  should  endure. 

Mental  depression  and  sleepless  nights  had  produced 
nervous  pains  in  her  neck  and  arms.  She  could  hardly 
drag  herself  along  for  very  weariness.  The  very  substance 
of  her  being  seemed  to  waste  away;  that  amount  of  un- 
consciousness without  which  life  is  an  agony  had  been  ab- 
stracted, leaving  nothing  but  a  fierce  mentality. 

She  slept  a  little  after  dinner,  and  awakening  about 
eleven,  she  foresaw  another  night  of  insomnia.  The  chat- 
ter of  her  conscience  continued,  tireless  as  a  cricket,  and 
she  had  lost  hope  of  being  able  to  silence  it.  The  hysterical 
tears  of  last  night  had  brought  her  four  hours  of  sleep, 
but  there  was  no  chance  of  any  repetition  of  them.  It 
would  be  useless  to  go  upstairs.  She  sang  through  the  great- 
er part  of  "  Lohengrin,"  and  then  took  up  the  "  Meioter- 


EVELYN  INXES.  339 

singer,"  and  read  it  till  it  fell  from  her  hands.  ...  It  was 
three  o'clock;  and  feeling  very  tired,  she  thought  that  she 
might  be  able  to  sleep.  But  all  night  long  she  saw  her  life 
from  end  to  end.  Her  miserable  passage  through  this  life, 
the  weakness  of  her  character  and  the  vileness  of  her  sins 
were  shown  to  her  in  a  hideous  magnification.  She  was  ex- 
hibited to  herself  like  an  insect  in  a  crystal,  and  she  per- 
ceived the  remotest  antennae  of  her  being. 


XXX. 

ONE  night  it  occurred  to  her  that  she  might  ring  for 
Merat  and  send  her  to  the  chemist's  for  a  sleeping  draught. 
But  it  was  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  she  did  not 
like  to  impose  such  a  task  on  her  maid.  Moreover,  she 
might  get  to  sleep  a  little  later  on,  so  she  wrote  on  a  piece 
of  paper  that  Merat  was  not  to  come  to  her  room  until  she 
rang  for  her,  and  she  lay  down  and  folded  her  arms,  and 
once  more  began  to  count  the  sheep  through  the  gate.  But 
that  night  sleep  seemed  further  than  ever  from  her  eyes, 
and  at  eight  she  was  obliged  to  ring.  "  Merat,  I  have  not 
closed  my  eyes  all  night." 

"  Mademoiselle  ought  to  have  a  sleeping  draught." 

"Yes,  I'll  take  one  to-night.  Get  me  some  tea.  An- 
other night  like  this  will  drive  me  mad." 

Late  in  the  afternoon  she  slept  for  an  hour  in  an  arm- 
chair, and,  a  little  rested,  went  to  walk  in  the  park.  She 
was  not  feeling  so  dazed;  her  brain  was  not  so  light,  and 
the  sense  of  whiteness  was  gone;  the  pains  in  the  neck  and 
arms  too  had  died  down;  they  were  now  like  a  dim  sugges- 
tion, a  memory.  But  the  greatest  relief  of  all  was  that  she 
was  not  thinking,  conscience  was  quiescent,  and  in  the 
calm  of  the  evening  and  the  gentleness  of  the  light,  life 
seemed  easier  to  bear.  If  she  could  only  get  a  night's 
sleep!  Now  she  did  not  know  which  was  the  worst — 
the  reality,  the  memory,  or  the  anticipation  of  a  sleepless 
night.  She  had  wandered  round  the  park  by  the  Marble 
Arch,  and  had  continued  her  walk  through  Kensington 
Gardens,  and  sitting  on  the  hillside  by  the  Long  Water, 


340  EVELYN  1NNES. 

with  the  bridge  on  her  left  hand  and  the  fountains  under 
her  eyes,  she  looked  towards  Kensington.  There  an  iri- 
descent sky  floated  like  a  bubble  among  the  autumn-tinted 
trees.  She  was  then  thinking  of  her  music  and  her  friends ; 
she  hardly  knew  of  what  she  was  thinking,  when  a  thought 
so  clear  that  it  sounded  like  a  bell  spoke  within  her,  and  it 
said  that  the  things  of  which  she  was  thinking  were  as 
nothing,  and  that  Life  was  but  a  little  moment  compared 
with  Eternity,  and  she  seemed  to  see  into  the  final  time 
which  lay  beyond  the  grave.  "  There  and  not  here  are  the 
true  realities,"  said  the  voice,  and  she  got  up  and  walked 
hurriedly  down  the  hillside,  fearing  lest  the  fierce  con- 
flict of  conscience  should  begin  again  in  her.  She  walked 
as  fast  as  she  was  able,  hoping  to  extinguish  in  action  the 
conscience  that  she  dreaded,  but  she  was  weak  and  almost 
helpless,  and  had  to  pause  to  rest.  She  stood,  one  hand  on 
the  balustrade,  not  daring  to  turn  her  head  lest  she  should 
see  the  spire  of  the  Kensington  Church. 

She  walked  across  the  gardens,  throxigh  the  great  groves, 
and  sat  down.  The  grass  was  worn  away  about  the  roots 
of  the  trees,  and  through  the  gnarled  tmnks  she  could  see 
the  keeper's  cottage  covered  with  reddened  creeper.  Per- 
haps it  was  the  calm  and  seclusion  that  called  her  thoughts 
to  the  convent  garden,  and  she  reflected  that  if  she  had  not 
accepted  the  nuns'  invitation  to  tea,  her  life  might  have 
continued  without  deviation.  She  was  impressed  with  the 
slightness  of  the  thread  on  which  our  destiny  hangs,  and 
then  by  the  inevitableness  of  our  lives.  We  perceive  the 
governing  rule  only  when  we  look  back.  The  present  al- 
ways seems  chaos,  but  when  we  look  back,  we  distinguish 
the  reason  of  every  action,  and  we  recognise  the  perfect  ful- 
filment of  what  must  be.  Her  visit  to  the  convent — how 
little  it  was  when  looked  at  from  one  side,  when  looked  at 
from  another  how  extraordinary!  If  she  had  known  that 
Monsignor  was  going  tc  ask  her  to  go  there,  she  would 
have  invented  a  plausible  excuse,  but  she  had  had  no  time 
to  think;  his  kind  eyes  were  fixed  upon  her,  and  he  seemed 
so  ready  to  believe  all  she  said,  that  her  courage  sank  within 
her,  and  she  could  not  lie  to  him.  Perhaps  all  this  was  by 
intention,  by  the  very  grace  of  God!  The  Virgin  might 
have  interceded  on  her  behalf,  for  is  it  not  said  that  who- 
ever wears  the  scapular  of  Our  Lady  of  Mount  Carrnel 


EVELYN  INNES.  341 

cannot  lose  his  soul?  But  for  the  last  two  years,  for  more 
than  two  years,  she  had  not  worn  her  scapular.  The 
strings  had  broken,  and  they  had  not  been  mended.  She 
had  intended  to  buy  another,  but  had  not  been  able  to 
bring  herself  to  do  so,  so  hypocritical  did  it  seem. 

It  might  be  that  these  dreadful  nights  of  insomnia  had 
been  sent  so  that  she  might  have  an  opportunity  of  realising 
the  wickedness  of  her  life,  and  the  risk  she  incurred  of 
losing  her  immortal  soul.  She  dare  not  have  recourse 
to  the  sleeping  draught,  and  must  endure  perhaps  another 
sleepless  night.  If  they  had  been  sent,  as  she  thought  they 
were,  for  a  purpose,  she  must  not  dare  to  hush,  by  artificial 
means,  the  sense  God  had  awakened  in  her;  to  do  so  would 
be  like  flying  in  the  face  of  Providence.  She  had  never 
suffered  from  sleeplessness  before,  and  could  not  think  that 
this  insomnia  was  accidental.  No,  she  dare  not  have  re- 
course to  sleeping  draughts,  at  least  not  till  she  had  been 
to  confession.  If  afterwards  she  did  not  get  to  sleep,  it 
would  be  different.  The  fear  arose  in  her  of  taking  too 
much,  of  dying  in  her  sleep.  If  she  were  to  awake  in  hell ! 
And  that  evening, when  Merat  reminded  her  of  the  draught, 
she  said  it  was  to  be  left  on  the  table,  and  that  she  would 
take  it  if  she  required  it. 

The  darkness  could  not  hide  the  slim  bottle  corked  with 
a  slim  blond  cork,  and  so  clear  was  the  vision  that  she 
could  read  the  label  through  the  darkness.  It  was  only  par- 
tially gummed  on  the  bottom,  and  she  could  read  the  pale 
writing.  "  To  be  taken  before  bedtime."  The  temptation 
struck  through  the  darkness,  sweet  and  dreamily  seductive 
it  entered  her  brain.  She  was  tempted  as  by  a  dark,  dream- 
less river;  hushed  in  an  unconscious  darkness  she  would  bo 
upon  that  river,  floating  through  a  long,  winding  night 
towards  a  dim,  very  distant  day.  If  she  were  to  drink, 
darkness  would  sink  upon  her,  and  all  this  visible  world, 
the  continual  sight  of  which  she  felt  must  end  in  lunacy, 
would  pass  away  from  her.  So  great  was  the  temptation 
that  she  did  not  dare  to  get  out  of  bed  and  put  the  bottle 
away — if  she  did  she  must  drink  it,  so  she  lay  quite  still, 
her  face  turned  against  the  wall,  trying  to  find  courage  in 
the  thought  that  God  had  imposed  the  torture  of  these 
sleepless  nights  upon  her  in  order  that  she  might  be  saved 
from  the  eternal  sleeplessness  of  hell. 


342  EVELYN  INNES. 

Mistakes  are  made  in  the  preparation  of  medicines,  but 
if  no  mistake  had  been  made,  a  change  in  her  health  might 
unfit  her  for  so  large  a  dose,  and  if  through  either  of  these 
chances  she  were  to  die  in  her  sleep,  there  was  no  question 
that  she  must  awake  in  hell.  She  did  not  dare  to  go  to 
the  draught,  but  lay  quite  still,  her  head  close  against  the 
wall,  praying  for  darkness,  crying  for  relief  from  this  too 
fierce  mentality;  it  seemed  to  be  eating  up  the  very  sub- 
stance of  her  brain. 

On  the  following  evening  she  sat  in  her  armchair  watch- 
ing the  clock.  It  had  struck  eleven — that  was  the  time 
for  her  going  to  bed,  but  the  hour  had  become  a  redoubt- 
able one.  Bedtime  filled  her  with  fear,  and  the  thought 
of  another  sleepless  night  deprived  her  of  all  courage. 
She  did  not  dare  to  go  upstairs.  She  sat  in  her  armchair 
as  if  in  terror  of  a  mortal  enemy.  She  had  hidden  the 
bottle,  but  her  maid  had  ordered  another.  There  were  now 
two,  sufficient  to  procure  death,  said  her  conscience,  and 
since  dinner  the  temptation  to  commit  suicide  had  been 
growing  in  her  brain;  like  a  vulture  perched  upon  a  jag 
of  mountain  rock,  she  could  see  the  temptation  watching 
her.  She  tried  not  to  see,  but  the  thought  grew  blacker 
and  larger — its  beak  was  in  her  brain,  and  she  was  drawn, 
as  if  by  talons,  tremblingly  from  her  chair.  She  was  so 
weak  that  she  could  hardly  cross  the  room;  but  the  thought 
of  death  seemed  to  give  her  courage,  and  without  it  she 
thought  she  never  would  have  had  the  strength  to  get 
upstairs.  The  attraction  was  extraordinary,  and  her  power- 
lessness  to  resist  it  was  part  of  the  fascination,  and  she 
looked  round  the  room  like  a  victim  looking  for  the  knife. 
She  could  not  see  the  bottle  on  her  dressing-table,  and 
accepting  this  as  a  favourable  omen,  she  undressed  and  lay 
down. 

After  all,  she  might  sleep  without  having  recourse  to 
death;  but,  lying  on  the  pillow,  she  could  think  of  nothing 
but  the  slim  bottle  and  the  slim  blond  cork,  and  a  thick, 
white  liquid,  and  the  dark  river  into  which  she  would  sink, 
the  winding  darkness  on  which  she  would  float,  and  she 
had  not  strength  to  think  whither  it  led.  Her  only  thought 
was  not  to  see  this  world  any  more;  her  only  desire  not 
to  think  of  Ulick  or  Owen,  and  to  be  tortured  no  longer  by 
doubt  of  what  was  right  and  what  was  wrong.  She  was 


EVELYN  INNES.  343 

aware  that  she  was  losing  possession  of  her  self-control, 
and  would  be  soon  drawn  into  the  dreaded  but  much-de- 
sired abyss;  and  in  this  delirium,  produced  by  long  insom- 
nia, she  began  to  conceive  her  suicide  as  an  act  of  defiance 
against  God,  and  she  rejoiced  in  her  hatred  of  God,  who 
had  afflicted  her  so  cruelly — for  it  was  hatred  that  had 
come  to  her  aid,  and  would  enable  her  to  secure  a  long, 
long  sleep.  "  Out  of  the  sight  of  this  world  " — she  mut- 
tered the  words  as  she  sought  the  chloral — "I'll  sleep,  I'll 
sleep,  I  must  sleep.  Sleep  or  death,  one  or  the  other,  so 
long  as  I  am  out  of  the  sight  of  this  world."  But  in  her 
frenzy  of  desire  for  sleep  she  overlooked  the  slim  bottle 
with  the  thin  blond  cork.  Yet  it  stood  on  the  toilet-table 
amid  other  bottles,  right  under  her  eyes,  but  over  and 
over  again  she  passed  it  by,  until  frightened  at  not  finding 
it,  she  opened  drawer  after  drawer,  and  rushed  to  her  ward- 
robe thinking  it  might  be  there.  She  sought  for  it,  throw- 
ing her  things  about,  and,  not  finding  it  anywhere,  a  cold 
sweat  broke  over  her  forehead.  Another  sleepless  night 
and  she  must  go  mad.  If  she  did  not  find  it,  she  must  find 
another  way  out  of  this  agony,  and  the  thought  of  cutting 
her  throat,  or  throwing  herself  out  of  the  window,  flashed 
across  her  mind.  "  Sleep  I  must  have — sleep,  sleep,  sleep !  " 
she  muttered,  as  with  fearing  fingers  she  emptied  out  the 
contents  of  her  little  workbox,  where  odds  and  ends  col- 
lected. It  was  her  scapular  that  came  up  under  her  hand, 
and  at  the  sight  of  it,  all  her  mad  revolt  was  hushed,  and  a 
calm  settled  upon  her.  "  A  miracle,  a  miracle,"  she  mur- 
mured, "  the  Virgin  has  done  this ;  she  interceded  for  me ;  " 
and  at  the  same  moment,  catching  sight  of  the  chloral 
right  under  her  very  eyes,  she  could  no  longer  doubt  the 
miraculous  interposition,  of  the  Virgin.  For  how  otherwise 
could  that  bottle  have  escaped  her  notice?  She  had  looked 
at  the  very  place  where  it  stood  many  times,  and  had  not 
seen  it;  she  had  moved  the  other  bottles  and  she  had  not 
seen  it.  The  Virgin  had  taken  it  away — she  was  sure  it  was 
not  there  five  minutes  ago — or  else  the  Virgin  had  blinded 
her  eyes  to  it.  A  miracle  had  happened;  and  in  a  quiver- 
ing peace  of  mind  and  an  intense  joy  of  the  heart,  she 
mended  the  strings  of  her  broken  scapular.  Then  she 
hung  it  round  her  neck,  and  kneeling  by  the  bedside,  she 
said  the  prayers  that  it  enjoined;  and  when  she  got  into 


344  EVELYN  INNES. 

bed  she  saw  a  light  shining  in  one  corner  of  the  room, 
and,  sure  that  it  was  the  Virgin  who  had  come  in  person 
to  visit  her,  she  continued  her  prayers  till  she  fell  asleep. 


XXXI. 

A  KNOCK  came  at  her  door,  and  Merat  was  glad  to  hear 
that  Mademoiselle  had  slept.  She  noticed  that  the  sleeping- 
draught  had  not  been  taken,  and  picking  up  the  various 
things  that  Evelyn  had  scattered  in  her  search,  she  won- 
dered at  the  disorder  of  the  room,  making  Evelyn  feel 
uncomfortable  by  her  remarks.  Evelyn  knew  it  would  be 
impossible  for  Merat  to  guess  the  cause  of  it  all.  But 
when  she  hesitated  about  what  dress  she  would  wear,  de- 
claring against  this  one  and  that  one,  her  choice  all  the 
time  being  fixed  on  a  black  crepon,  Merat  glanced  sus- 
piciously at  her  mistress;  and  when  Evelyn  put  aside  her 
rings,  selecting  in  preference  two  which  she  did  not  usually 
wear,  the  maid  was  convinced  that  some  disaster  had  hap- 
pened, and  was  ready  to  conclude  that  Ulick  Dean  was  the 
cause  of  these  sleepless  nights. 

Evelyn  had  chosen  this  dress  because  she  was  going  to 
St.  Joseph's,  or  because  she  supposed  she  was  going  then-. 
It  did  not  seem  to  her  that  she  could  confess  to  any,.n  • 
but  Monsignor.  But  why  he?  one  priest  would  do  as  well 
as  another.  She  was  too  tired  to  think. 

Her  brain  was  like  one  of  those  autumn  days  when 
clouds  hang  low,  and  a  dimness  broods  between  sky  ;m<l 
earth.  True  that  there  were  the  events  of  last  night — her 
search  for  the  chloral,  the  finding  of  her  scapular,  her  belief 
in  a  special  interposition  of  Providence,  and  then  her.  reso- 
lution to  go  to  confession.  It  was  all  there;  she  knew  it 
all,  but  did  not  want  to  think  about  it.  She  had  been  think- 
ing for  a  week,  and  this  was  the  first  respite  she  had  had 
from  thought,  and  she  wished  this  stupor  of  brain  to  con- 
tinue till  four  o'clock.  That  was  the  time  she  would  have 
to  be  at  St.  Joseph's.  He  was  generally  there  at  that  time. 

She  had  lain  down  on  the  sofa  after  breakfast,  hoping 
to  sleep  a  little;  if  she  didn't,  the  time  would  be  very  long; 


EVELYN  IXNES.  345 

but  as  she  dozed,  she  began  to  see  the  thin,  worn  face  and 
the  piercing  eyes,  and  the  intonation  of  his  voice  began 
to  ring  in  her  ears.  As  she  thought  or  as  she  dreamed, 
the  striking  of  the  clock  reminded  her  of  the  number  of 
hours  that  separated  them.  Only  four  hours  and  she  would 
be  kneeling  at  his  feet!  Then  she  felt  that  she  had  ad- 
vanced a  stage,  and  was  appreciably  nearer  the  inevitable 
end,  and  lay  staring  at  the  sequence  of  events.  She  saw 
the  hours  stretching  out  reaching  to  him,  and  she,  all  tho 
while,  was  moving  through  the  hours  automatically.  All 
kind  of  similes  presented  themselves  to  her  mind.  She 
asked  herself  how  it  was  that  Monsignor  had  come  into 
her  life.  She  had  not  sought  him;  she  had  not  wanted 
him  in  her  life,  but  he  had  come!  She  remembered  the 
first  time  she  saw  him — that  Sunday  morning  when  she 
went  to  St.  Joseph's  to  meet  her  father's  choir — and  could 
recall  the  exact  appearance  of  the  church  as  he  walked 
across  the  aisle  to  the  pulpit.  It  was  illuminated  by  a 
sudden  ray  of  sunlight  falling  through  one  of  the  eastern 
windows,  and  she  remembered  how  it  had  lighted  up  the 
thin,  narrow  face,  bringing  a  glow  of  colour  to  the  dark 
skin  till  it  seemed  like  one  of  the  carved  saints  she  had 
seen  in  Romanesque  churches  on  the  Rhine.  She  remem- 
bered the  shape  of  the  small  head,  carried  well  back,  and 
how  she  had  been  impressed  by  the  slow  stride  with  which 
he  crossed  the  sanctuary.  Then  her  thoughts  passed  to  the 
moment  when,  standing  in  the  pulpit,  he  had  looked  out 
on  the  congregation,  seeming  to  divine  the  presence  of  some 
great  sinner  there.  She  had  felt  that  he  was  aware  of  her 
existence,  for  in  that  moment  the  thin  grey  eyes  seemed  to 
see  her,  even  to  think  her,  and  they  had  frightened  her, 
they  were  so  clear,  so  set  on  some  purpose — God's  or  th™ 
Church's.  She  had  met  him  that  evening  at  a  concert,  and 
how  well  she  remembered  her  father  introducing  him !  He 
had  spoken  to  her  several  minutes;  everyone  in  the  room 
was  looking  at  them,  and  she  recalled  the  scene — all  th:> 
girls,  their  dresses,  and  the  expression  of  their  eyes.  But 
she  could  not  recall  what  Monsignor  had  said,  only  her  im- 
pressions; the  same  strange  fascination  and  fear  which 
she  had  experienced  when  Owen  came  to  the  concerts  long 
ago — that  loud  winter's  night,  harsh  and  hard  as  iron. 
Owen  had  stood  talking  to  her  too,  and  she  had  been  fas- 


EVELYN  JNNES. 

cinated.  .  .  .  He  had  admired  her  singing,  and  Monsignor 
had  admired  her  singing;  but  she  was  determined  not  to 
sing  until  Monsignor  had  asked  her  to  sing,  and  when  he 
had  asked  her  to  go  to  the  convent  she  had  gone.  It  was 
very  strange;  she  could  not  account  for  it.  It  was  all 
beyond  herself,  outside  of  her,  far  away  like  the  stars,  and 
she  felt  now  as  she  did  whenever  she  looked  at  the  stars. 
Was  her  character  essentially  weak,  and  was  she  liable 
to  all  these  influences,  these  facile  assimilations?  Was 
there  nothing  within  her,  no  abiding  principle,  nothing 
that  she  could  call  her  own  ?  She  walked  up  the  room,  and 
tried  to  understand  herself — what  was  she,  bad  or  good, 
weak  or  strong?  If  she  only  knew  what  she  was,  then  she 
would  know  how  to  act. 

There  were  her  sins  against  faith.  She  had  striven  to 
undermine  her  belief  in  God.  She  had  read  Darwin  and 
Huxley  for  this  purpose,  and  not  in  the  least  to  obtain 
knowledge.  As  Monsignor  has  said,  "  When  a  Catholic 
loses  his  faith,  it  is  because  he  desires  to  lead  a  loose  life," 
and  she  hardly  dared  to  look  into  her  soul,  knowing  that  she 
would  find  confirmation  of  this  opinion.  She  had  not  been 
to  Mass,  because  at  the  Elevation  she  believed  in  spite  of 
herself;  so  she  had  been  as  insincere  in  her  unfaith  as  in 
her  faith.  Then  there  were  the  sins  of  the  flesh,  and  their 
number  and  their  blackness  terrified  her.  The  thought  of 
confessing  them  struck  her  down,  and  once  more  it  seemed 
that  she  could  never  raise  herself  out  of  the  slough  into 
which  she  had  fallen. 

In  a  corner  of  the  room  her  sins  crowded,  and  cover- 
ing her  face  with  her  hands,  she  was  convinced  that  she 
could  not  go  to  confession. 

Before  she  went  away  with  Owen  she  had  had  no  sins 
to  confess,  or  only  venial  sins;  that  she  had  been  late  for 
Mass  through  her  own  fault;  that  she  had  omitted  her 
evening  prayers.  Her  worst  sin  was  the  reading  of  a  novel 
which  she  thought  she  ought  not  to  have  read,  but  now 
her  life  was  all  sin.  If  the  priest  questioned  her  she  could 
not  answer,  she  must  refuse  to  answer.  So  there  seemed 
no  hope  for  her.  She  could  not  confess  everything,  and 
the  conviction  suddenly  possessed  her  that  Ond  had  de- 
serted her,  and  she  could  not  hope  for  redemption  from  her 
present  life.  For  she  could  not  confess  all  her  sins;  her 


EVELYN  IXNES.  347 

heart  would  fail  her,  she  would  be  tempted  to  conceal  some- 
thing, and  then  to  her  other  sins  she  would  add  the  sin 
of  a  bad  confession. 

Nervous  pains  began  again  in  her  arms  and  neck,  and 
she  experienced  the  same  wasting  away  of  the  very  sub- 
stance of  her  being,  of  the  protecting  envelope  of  the  un- 
conscious. She  was  again  a  mere  mentality,  and  she  looked 
round  the  room  with  a  frightened,  distracted  air.  On  the 
table  was  the  book  Monsignor  had  given  her,  Sin  and  Its 
Consequences.  But  she  turned  from  it  with  a  smile.  She 
did  not  need  anyone  to  tell  her  what  were  the  consequences 
of  sin — and  the  familiar  proverb  of  bringing  coals  to  New- 
castle rose  up  in  her  mind.  At  the  same  moment  she 
caught  sight  of  the  clock;  it  was  half -past  twelve,  and  she 
remembered  that  in  about  three  hours  and  a  half  it  would 
be  time  to  go  to  St.  Joseph's.  Then  like  a  flash  the  ques- 
tion came,  was  it  Monsignor's  influence  that  had  induced 
this  desire  of  a  pure  life  in  her?  She  could  not  deny  to 
herself  that  she  was  attracted  by  his  personality.  So  tha 
question  was,  how  far  his  personality  accounted  for  the 
change  that  had  come  over  her  life?  Was  it  the  mere  per- 
sonal influence  of  the  prelate,  or  an  inherent  sense  of  right 
and  wrong  that  compelled  her  to  send  her  lovers  away  and 
change  her  life?  If  it  were  the  mere  personal  influence  of 
Monsignor,  her  desire  of  a  pure  life  would  not  last,  and  to 
attain  something  that  was  not  natural  to  her  she  would 
have  ruined  her  life  to  no  purpose.  Owen's  influence  had 
died  in  her;  how  did  she  know  that  Monsignor's  would 
continue  even  so  long?  She  had  lived  an  evil  life  for  six 
years;  would  she  lead  a  good  one  for  the  same  time?  If 
she  knew  this  she  would  know  how  to  act.  But  not  only  for 
six  years  would  she  have  to  lead  a  good  life,  but  till  the 
very  end  of  her  life.  If  she  did  not  persevere  till  the  very 
end,  all  this  present  struggle  and  the  years  of  self-denial 
which  she  was  about  to  enter  on  would  be  useless.  She 
might  just  as  well  have  had  a  good  time  all  along.  A  good 
time!  That  was  just  it.  She  could  not  have  a  good  time. 
She  dare  not  face  the  agony,  the  agony  which  she  was  at 
present  enduring,  so  she  must  go  to  confession,  she  must 
have  inward  peace. 

"  So  my  life  is  over  and  done,"  she  said,  "  and  at  seven- 
and-twenty ! " 


348  EVELYN  INNES. 

She  twisted  in  her  fingers  a  letter  which  she  had  received 
that  morning  from  Mademoiselle  Helbrun.  She  was  stay- 
ing at  the  Savoy  Hotel,  and  had  just  returned  from  Mu- 
nich. Evelyn  felt  she  would  like  to  hear  about  her  success 
as  Frika,  and  how  So-and-So  had  sung  Brunnhilde,  and  the 
rest  of  the  little  gossip  about  the  profession.  She  would 
like  to  lunch  with  Louise  in  the  restaurant,  at  a  table  by  the 
window.  She  would  like  to  see  the  Thames,  and  hear 
things  that  she  might  never  hear  again.  But  was  it  pos- 
sible that  she  was  never  going  to  join  again  in  the  tumult 
of  the  Valkyrie?  She  remembered  her  war  gear,  the  white 
tunic  with  gold  breastplates.  Was  it  possible  that  she 
would  never  cry  their  cry  from  the  top  of  the  rocks;  and 
her  favourite  horse,  the  horse  that  Owen  had  given  her  for 
the  part,  what  would  become  of  him?  What  would  become 
of  her  jewellery,  of  her  house,  of  her  fame,  of  everything? 
She  attempted  a  last  stand  against  her  conscience.  Her 
scruples  were  imaginary.  Owen  had  said  it  could  not  mat- 
ter to  God  whether  she  kissed  him  or  not.  But  she  did  not 
pursue  this  train  of  reasoning.  She  felt  it  to  be  wrong. 
But  she  could  not  confess — she  could  not  explain  every- 
thing, and  again  she  was  struck  with  a  sort  of  mental  pa- 
ralysis. Why  Monsignor — why  not  another  priest?  No, 
not  another.  She  could  not  say  why,  but  not  another;  he 
was  the  one.  But  perhaps  she  only  wanted  to  tell  someone, 
a  woman — Louise,  for  instance.  If  she  were  to  tell  Louise 
— she  put  the  idea  out  of  her  mind,  feeling  it  to  be  vain, 
and  trying  to  think  that  there  was  no  need  why  she  should 
leave  the  stage,  and  uncertain  whether  she  should  stay  on- 
the  stage  if  Monsignor  forbade  her,  or  if  she  wanted  to  even 
if  he  allowed  her,  she  put  on  her  hat  and  went  to  lunch 
with  Louise.  It  would  help  her  to  pass  the  time;  it  would 
save  her  from  thinking.  She  must  speak  to  someone.  But 
the  Savoy  was  on  her  way  to  St.  Joseph's.  It  was  half  way 
there.  A  little  overcome  by  the  coincidence,  she  told  hor 
servant  to  call  a  hansom,  and  as  she  drove  to  the  hotel  she 
wondered  why  she  had  thought  of  going  to  see  Louix  . 

She  met  her  in  the  courtyard,  and  the  vivacious  little 
woman  cried,  "My  dear,  how  glad  I  am  to  see  you!  "  and 
she  stretched  out  both  hands.  Evelyn  was  more  pleased  to 
see  her  friend  than  she  expected  to  be,  and  while  listening 
to  her  she  envied  her  for  being  so  happy,  and  she  wondered 


EVELYN  INNES.  349 

why  she  was  so  happy;  and  while  asking  herself  these  ques- 
tions she  noticed  her  dress.  Mademoiselle  Helbrun's 
plump  figure  was  set  off  to  full  advantage  in  a  black  and 
white  checked  silk  dress,  and  she  wore  a  wonderful  arched 
hat  with  flowing  plumes  of  the  bird  of  paradise.  She  was  a 
prima-donna  every  inch  of  her,  standing  on  the  steps  of  her 
hotel,  whereas  the  operatic  stage  could  hardly  be  distin- 
guished at  all  in  Evelyn's  dress.  With  the  black  crepon 
skirt  she  wore  a  heliotrope  blouse,  and  she  stood,  one  foot 
showing  beyond  the  skirt,  in  a  statue-like  attitude,  her  pale 
parasol  held  negligently  over  one  shoulder. 

"  My  dear,"  she  said,  "  I  have  come  to  ask  you  to  let  me 
lunch  with  you." 

"  But  I  shall  be  enchanted,  my  dear.  I  wrote  on  the 
chance,  never  thinking  that  you  would  be  in  town  this 
season." 

"  Yes,  it  is  strange.  I  don't  know  why  I  am  here. 
There's  no  one  in  town." 

"  Where  would  you  like  to  lunch  ?  In  my  room  or  in 
the  restaurant  ?  " 

"  It  will  be  gayer  in  the  restaurant.  I  haven't  seen  a 
soul  for  nearly  a  week." 

"My  dear!" 

Louise  gave  her  a  sharp  look,  in  which  the  passing 
thought  that  Evelyn  might  be  in  want  of  money  was  dis- 
missed as  ridiculous.  Louise  thought  of  some  unhappy 
love  affair,  and  when  they  sat  down  to  lunch  she  noticed 
that  Evelyn  avoided  answering  a  question  regarding  her- 
self, and  turned  the  conversation  on  to  the  Munich  per- 
formance. The  evident  desire  of  Evelyn  not  to  talk  about 
herself  clouded  Louise's  pleasure  in  talking  of  herself,  and 
she  paused  in  her  account  of  the  Wotan,  the  Brunnhilde, 
the  conductor  and  the  Ehine  Maidens  to  tell  Evelyn  of  the 
inquiries  that  had  been  made  about  her — all  were  looking 
forward  to  her  Kundry  next  year.  Madame  Wagner  had 
said  that  there  never  had  been  such  a  Brunnhilde. 

"  I  daresay  she  said  so,  but  at  the  bottom  of  her  heart 
she  did  not  like  my  Brunnhilde.  It  was  against  her  ideas. 
She  always  thought  I  was  too  much  woman,  and  forgot 
that  I  was  a  Goddess.  She  was  right.  I  never  could  re- 
member the  Goddess.  I  never  remember  anything  on  the 
stage.  'Tisn't  my  way.  I  simply  live  it  all  out.  I  was 


350  EVELYN  INNES. 

enthusiastic  when  Siegfried  came  to  release  me,  because  I 
should  have  been  enthusiastic  about  him."  Evelyn's 
thoughts  went  back  to  Owen,  and  she  remembered  how 
he  had  released  her  from  the  bondage  of  music  lessons  with 
a  kiss. 

"  But  when  I  came  to  tell  you  about  the  ruined  Valhalla 
and  the  poor  fallen  Gods  you  were  sorry  ? " 

"  Yes,  I  was  sorry  for  father." 

"The  All-Father?" 

Evelyn  laughed. 

"  No,  my  own  father.  That's  my  way.  I  think  of 
what  has  happened  to  me  and  I  act  that.  But  tell  me  about 
the  Munich  performances." 

While  Mademoiselle  Helbrun  told  of  the  different  points 
in  which  they  excelled,  Evelyn  thought  and  thought  of  the 
strange  charm  of  the  woman  who  had  so  ably  continued  the 
Master's  work.  She  recalled  the  tall,  bending  figure  and 
the  studious  months  in  that  house,  and  she  saw  the  alley  of 
clipped  limes.  She  had  sat  and  walked  there  so  often. 
She  would  never  see  that  alley  again.  She  remembered  the 
spacious  rooms  which  the  low  building  did  not  suggest,  and 
then  his  study !  the  room  in  which  he  had  written  "  The 
Dusk  of  the  Gods"  and  "Parsifal."  The  walls  were  lined 
with  bookcases,  books  of  legends  and  philosophical  works. 
While  pretending  to  listen  to  her  friend's  account  of  the 
performances  at  Munich  a  vivid  memory  of  one  night  shot 
across  her  brain.  It  was  a  heavy,  breathless  night,  with- 
out star  or  moon.  She  had  wandered  into  the  dark  garden ; 
she  had  found  her  way  to  the  grave,  and  standing  by  the 
Master's  side  she  had  listened  to  the  music  and  seen  the 
guests  passing  across  the  lighted  windows.  The  warble  of 
the  fountain  had  seemed  to  her  like  the  pulse  of  Eternity. 
All  that  was  three  years  ago.  "  It  is  very  wonderful,  very 
wonderful,"  she  thought,  and  she  awoke  with  a  start,  and 
Mademoiselle  Helbrun  saw  she  had  not  been  listening.  She 
answered  Louise's  subsequent  remarks,  and  was  glad  that 
what  had  been  had  been.  She  was  giving  it  all  up,  it  was 
true,  but  it  was  not  as  if  she  had  not  known  life. 

The  sun  was  shining  on  the  great  brown  river,  and  out 
of  the  smoke-dimmed  sky  white  dreamy  clouds  were  faintly 
rising.  Evelyn's  eyes  had  wandered  out  there,  and  she 
seemed  to  see  a  thin  face  and  hard,  cold  eyes,  and  she  asked 


EVELYN  INNES.  351 

Louise  abruptly  what  the  time  was,  for  she  had  forgotten 
her  watch.  It  was  only  just  three  o'clock.  She  returned  to 
the  Munich  performances,  but  Louise  could  see  that  Evelyn 
was  all  the  time  struggling  against  an  overmastering  fate. 
The  only  thing  she  could  think  of  was  that  Evelyn  was 
being  forced  into  a  marriage  or  an  elopement  against  her 
will.  Once  or  twice  she  thought  that  Evelyn  was  going  to 
confide  in  her.  She  waited,  afraid  to  say  a  word  lest  she 
should  check  the  confidences  that  her  friend  seemed  tempt- 
ed to  entrust  her  with.  Evelyn's  eyes  were  dull  and  life- 
less. Louise  could  see  that  they  did  not  see  her,  and  it 
was  with  an  effort  that  Evelyn  said,  "  I  am  sorry  I  did  not 
see  your  Frika ;  "  and  once  started  she  rattled  on  for  some 
time,  hardly  knowing  what  she  was  saying,  arguing  about 
the  music  and  expressing  opinions  about  everything  and 
everybody.  Stopping  abruptly,  she  again  asked  her  friend 
what  time  it  was.  Louise  said  that  she  must  riot  go,  and 
then  tried  to  induce  her  to  come  for  a  drive  with  her;  but 
Evelyn  shook  her  head — she  was  engaged.  There  was  no 
trace  of  colour  in  her  face,  and  when  Louise  asked  when  they 
should  meet  again,  she  said  she  did  not  know,  but  she  hoped 
very  soon.  She  might  be  obliged  to  go  to  Paris  to-morrow, 
and  she  had  to  pay  some  visits  to  Scotland  at  the  end  of  the 
month.  Louise  did  not  like  to  question  her,  for  she  was 
sure  that  some  momentous  event  was  about  to  happen.  As 
she  drove  away  Louise  said,  "  I  should  not  be  surprised  if 
she  did  not  play  Kundry  next  year." 

While  wondering  at  the  grotesque  movement  of  the 
trotting  horse,  Evelyn  tried  once  more  to  save  herself  from 
this  visit  to  St.  Joseph's.  She  thought  of  what  it  would 
cost  her — her  present  life !  Her  lovers  were  gone  already, 
and  Monsignor  would  tell  her  that  she  must  give  up  the 
stage.  But  these  considerations  did  not  alter  the  fact  that 
she  was  going  to  St.  Joseph's.  She  was  rolling  thither,  like 
a  stone  down  a  hill.  She  saw  the  streets  and  people  as  she 
passed  them,  as  a  stone  might  if  it  had  eyes.  All  power  of 
will  had  been  taken  from  her;  it  was  the  same  as  when 
she  went  to  meet  Owen  at  Berkeley  Square,  and  in  a  strange 
lucidity  of  mind,  she  asked  herself  if  it  were  not  true  that 
we  are  never  more  than  mere  machines  set  in  motion  by  a 
master  hand,  predestined  to  certain  courses,  purblind  crea- 
tures who  do  not  perceive  their  own  helplessness,  except  in 
23 


352  EVELYN  INSES. 

rare  moments  of  heightened  consciousness.  As  if  to  con- 
vince herself  on  this  pohit,  she  strove  to  raise  her  hand  to 
open  the  trap  in  the  roof  of  the  hansom,  and  her  fear  in- 
creased so  that  she  could  not.  To  acquire  the  necessary 
strength,  she  reminded  herself  that  she  was  wrecking  her 
whole  life  for  an  idea,  for,  perhaps,  nothing  more  than  a 
desire  to  confess  her  sins.  Again  she  tried  to  raise  her 
hand,  and  she  looked  round,  feeling  that  nothing  short  of 
some  extraordinary  accident  could  save  her,  nothing  ex- 
cept an  accident  to  the  horse  or  carriage  could  save  her 
artistic  life.  Some  material  accident,  nothing  else.  .  .  . 
Monsignor  might  not  be  at  St.  Joseph's.  Perhaps  he  luul 
left  town.  Nobody  stayed  in  town  in  September,  and  for 
a  moment  it  seemed  hardly  worth  while  to  continue  her 
drive.  Her  thoughts  came  to  a  standstill,  and,  as  in  a 
nervous  vision,  Evelyn  saw  that  the  whole  of  her  future 
life  depended  on  her  seeing  Monsignor  that  day.  She  fore- 
saw that  if  she  were  turned  away  from  the  door  of  St. 
Joseph's,  she  would  never  come  back;  never  would  she  be 
able  to  bring  herself  to  the  point  again.  She  would  find 
Owen  waiting  for  her;  wherever  she  went,  she  would  meet 
him ;  sooner  or  later  the  temptation  to  return  to  him  would 
overcome  her.  Then,  indeed,  she  would  be  lost;  then,  in- 
deed, her  tragedy  would  begin.  .  .  .  Ah !  if  she  could  only 
cease  to  think  for  a  little  while;  only  for  a  little  while — a 
moment's  pause !  She  had  tried  to  escape  from  him  once 
before,  and  had  not  succeeded  because  there  was  no  one  to 
help  her.  Now  there  was  Monsignor.  The  reflection 
cheered  her,  and  a  few  minutes  were  left  to  discover  how 
much  of  her  conversion  was  owing  to  her  original  nature, 
and  how  much  to  Monsignor's  influence.  It  seemed  to  her 
that  if  she  were  certain  of  this  point,  she  would  know 
whether  she  should  go  forward  or  back.  But  her  heart 
gave  back  no  answer,  and  she  grew  more  helpless  and  terri- 
fied, like  a  bird  fallen  into  the  fascination  of  a  serpent. 
She  was  uncertain  if  she  could  lead  a  good  life.  She  no 
longer  desired  anything.  She  was  conscious  of  no  sensa- 
tion, except  that  she  was  rolling  independent  of  her  own 
will,  like  a  stone.  A  moment  after,  the  gable  of  the  church 
appeared  against  the  sky,  and  she  recogrn'rod  the  poor, 
ridiculous  creature  in  the  tattered  black  bonnet,  whose  stiff, 
crooked  appearance  she  had  known  since  childhood.  She 


EVELYN  INNES.  353 

had  changed  little  in  the  last  twenty  years.  She  walked 
with  the  same  sidling  gait,  her  hands  crossed  in  front  of  her 
like  a  doll.  Her  life  had  been  lived  about  St.  Joseph's; 
the  church  had  always  been  the  theatre  and  centre  of  her 
thoughts.  Doubtless  she  was  on  her  way  to  Benediction, 
and  the  temptation  to  follow  her  arose,  but  was  easily  re- 
sisted. Evelyn  paid  the  cabman  his  fare,  and  in  an  in- 
creasing tremor  of  nervous  agitation,  she  crossed  the  grav- 
elled space  in  front  of  the  presbytery.  The  attendant 
showed  her  into  the  same  bare  room,  where  there  was  noth- 
ing to  distract  her  thoughts  from  herself  except  the  four 
prints  on  the  walls.  She  had  recourse  to  them  in  the  hope 
of  stimulating  her  religious  fervour,  but  as  she  gazed  at  St. 
Monica  and  St.  Augustine  she  remembered  the  poor  woman 
she  had  just  seen.  There  had  been  scorn  of  her  ridiculous 
appearance  in  her  heart,  and  pride  that  she,  Evelyn,  had 
been  given  a  more  beautiful  body,  more  perfect  health,  and 
a  clearer  intelligence.  So  she  was  overcome  with  shame. 
How  dare  she  have  scorned  this  holy  woman.  If  she  had 
been  more  richly  gifted  by  Nature,  to  what  shameful  usage 
had  she  put  her  body  and  her  talents  ?  And  Evelyn  thought 
how  much  more  lovely  in  God's  eyes  was  this  poor  deformed 
woman.  To  sin  is  the  common  lot  of  humanity;  but  she 
had  done  more  than  commit  sins,  she  had  committed  the 
sin,  she  had  striven  to  tear  out  of  her  heart  that  sense  of 
right  and  wrong  which  God  had  planted  there.  She  had 
denied  the  ideal  as  the  Jews  had  denied  Christ.  Owen  had 
not  done  that;  he  lived  up  to  his  principles,  such  as  they 
were.  But  she  had  not  thought  she  was  acting  right,  she 
had  always  known  that  she  was  doing  wrong,  and  she  had 
gone  on  doing  wrong,  stifling  her  conscience,  hoping  always 
that  it  would  be  the  last  time. 

That  poor  woman  whose  appearance  had  raised  a  con- 
temptuous thought  in  her  heart  had  never  sinned  against 
her  faith.  She  had  not  sought  to  raise  doubts  in  her  heart 
concerning  God  and  morals;  she  had  lived  in  ardent  be- 
lief and  love,  never  doubting  that  God  watched  her  from 
his  heaven,  whither  he  would  call  her  in  good  time.  Al- 
mighty God!  She  was  struck  with  fear  lest  she  did  not 
believe  all  that  this  poor  woman  believed.  Did  she  believe 
that  she,  Evelyn  Innes,  would  appear  at  the  final  judgment 
and  be  assigned  a  place  for  ever  and  ever  in  either  eternal 


354  EVELYN  INNES. 

bliss  or  torment?  She  did  not  know  if  she  believed  this. 
Last  night  she  was  sure  she  believed,  but  to-day  she  did 
not  know.  .  .  .  She  did  not  know  that  heaven  was  as  this 
poor  woman  imagined  it.  She  asked  herself  if  she  believed 
in  a  future  life  of  any  sort?  She  was  not  sure,  she  did  not 
know;  she  was  only  sure  that  whether  there  be  a  future 
life  or  none,  our  obligation  to  live  according  to  the  dic- 
tates of  our  conscience  remains  the  same.  But  Monsignor 
might  not  deem  this  sufficient,  and  might  refuse  her  abso- 
lution. She  strove  to  convince  herself,  hurriedly,  aware 
that  the  moments  were  fleeting,  that  she  had  a  soul.  That 
sense  of  right  and  wrong  which,  like  a  whip,  had  driven 
her  here  could  be  nothing  else  but  .the  voice  of  her  soul ; 
therefore  there  was  a  soul,  and  if  there  was  a  soul  it  could 
not  die,  and  if  it  did  not  die  it  must  go  somewhere;  there- 
fore there  was  a  heaven  and  a  hell.  But  in  spite  of  her 
desire  to  convince  herself,  remembrance  of  Owen's  argu- 
ments whistled  like  a  wind  through  her  pious  exhortations, 
and  all  that  she  had  read  in  Huxley  and  Darwin  and 
Spencer;  the  very  words  came  back  thick  and  distinct,  and 
like  one  who  finds  progress  impossible  in  the  face  of  the 
gale,  she  stopped  thinking.  "  We  know  nothing  .  .  .  we 
know  nothing,"  were  the  words  she  heard  in  the  shriek  of 
the  wind,  and  revealed  religion  appeared  in  tattered,  miser- 
able plight,  a  forlorn  spectre  borne  away  on  the  wind.  So 
distinct  was  the  vision,  so  explicit  her  hearing,  that  she 
could  not  pretend  to  herself  that  she  was  a  Christian  in 
any  but  a  moral  sense,  and  this  would  not  satisfy  Monsi- 
gnor.  Then  question  after  question  pealed  in  her  ears. 
What  should  she  say  when  he  came  ?  Was  it  not  better  for 
her  to  leave  at  once?  But  then?  She  took  one  step  to- 
wards the  door.  However  thin  and  shallow  her  belief 
might  be,  she  must  confess  her  sins.  She  felt  that  she 
must  confess  her  sins  even  if  she  did  not  believe  in  con- 
fession. Her  thoughts  paused,  and  she  was  terrified  by 
the  mystery  which  her  own  existence  presented  to  herself. 

The  door  opened  and  the  priest  stood  looking  at  her. 
She  could  see  that  he  divined  the  truth.  In  the  first  glance 
he  read  that  Evelyn  had  come  to  confession,  and  it  was  for 
him  a  moment  of  extraordinary  spiritual  elation. 

Monsignor  Mostyn  and  Sir  Owen  had  been  at  school  to- 
gether, and  though  they  had  not  met  since,  they  frequently 


EVELYN  INNES.  355 

heard  of  each  other.  Owen's  ideas  of  marriage  and  re- 
ligion were  well  known  to  the  priest.  He  had  heard  soon 
after  she  had  gone  away  that  she  had  gone  with  Asher,  his 
old  schoolfellow.  He  knew  the  pride  that  Asher  would 
take  in  destroying  her  faith,  and  this  diabolic  project  he 
had  determined  to  frustrate;  and  every  year  when  he  re- 
turned from  Rome,  he  asked  if  Evelyn  was  expected  to 
sing  in  London  that  season.  As  year  after  year  went  by, 
his  chance  of  saving  her  soul  seemed  to  grow  more  remote; 
but  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart  he  believed  that  he  was  the 
chosen  instrument  of  God's  grace.  That  night  at  the  con- 
cert in  her  father's  house,  the  first  words — something  in 
her  manner,  the  expression  in  her  eyes,  had  led  him  to 
think  that  the  conversion  would  be  an  easy  one.  But  it 
had  come  about  quicker  than  he  had  expected.  And  as  he 
stood  looking  at  her,  he  was  aware  of  an  alloy  of  personal 
vanity  and  strove  to  stifle  it;  he  thought  of  himself  as  the 
humble  instrument  selected  to  win  her  from  this  infamous, 
this  renegade  Catholic,  and  the  trouble  so  visible  in  her 
was  confirmation  of  his  belief  that  there  can  be  no  peace 
for  a  Catholic  outside  the  pale  of  the  Church. 

"  I  have  wanted  to  see  you  so  much,"  she  began  hur- 
riedly. "  There  is  a  great  deal  I  want  to  tell  you.  But 
perhaps  you  have  no  time  now." 

"  My  dear  child,  I  have  ample  time,  I  am  only  too 
pleased  to  be  of  service  to  you.  I  am  afraid  you  are  in 
trouble,  you  look  quite  ill." 

The  kindness  of  the  voice  filled  her  eyes  with  tears,  and 
she  understood  in  a  moment  the  relief  it  would  be  to  tell 
her  troubles  to  this  kind  friend;  to  feel  his  kind  advice 
allaying  them  one  by  one,  and  to  know  that  the  sleepless 
solitude  in  which  she  had  tried  to  grapple  with  them  was 
over  at  last.  To  give  her  time  to  recover  herself,  Mon- 
signor  spoke  of  a  letter  he  had  received  that  morning  from 
the  Superior  of  the  Passionist  Convent. 

"  I  will  not  trouble  you  with  her  repeated  thanks  for 
what  you  have  done  for  her.  She  begs  me  to  tell  you  that 
she  and  the  sisters  unite  in  inviting  you  to  spend  a  few 
days  with  them.  They  suggest  that  you  should  choose  your 
own  time." 

"  Oh,  Monsignor,  how  can  I  go  and  stay  with  them  ? 
I  thought  I  should  have  died  of  shame  when  I  went  there 


356  EVELYN  INNES. 

after  the  concert  with  you.  Mother  Philippa  asked  me  if 
I  had  travelled  with  my  father  when  I  went  abroad.  You 
must  remember,  for  you  came  to  my  assistance." 

"  I  turned  the  conversation,  seeing  that  it  embarrassed 
you." 

"  But  you  must  have  guessed." 

"  On  account  of  your  father's  position  at  St.  Joseph's,  I 
had  heard  of  you.  ...  I  had  heard  of  your  intimacy  with 
Sir  Owen  Asher,  and  the  life  of  an  opera  singer  is  not  one 
to  which  a  good  Catholic  can  easily  reconcile  herself." 

As  they  sat  on  either  side  of  the  table,  Evelyn  was 
attracted,  and  then  absorbed,  by  the  distinctive  appearance 
of  the  priest.  His  mind  was  in  his  face.  The  long,  high 
forehead,  with  black  hair  growing  sparely  upon  it;  the 
small,  brilliant  eyes,  and  the  long  firm  line  of  the  jaw, 
now  distinct,  for  the  head  was  turned  almost  in  profile. 
The  face  was  a  perfect  symbol  of  the  mind  behind  it;  and 
the  intimate  concurrence  of  the  appearance  and  the  thought 
was  the  reason  of  its  attractiveness.  It  was  the  beauty  of 
unity;  here  was  a  man  whose  ideas  are  so  deeply  rooted 
that  they  express  themselves  in  his  flesh.  In  him  there  was 
nothing  floating  or  undecided;  and  in  the  line  of  the  thin, 
small  mouth  and  the  square  nostrils,  Evelyn  divined  a  per- 
fect certainty  on  all  points.  In  this  way  she  was  attracted 
to  his  spiritual  guidance,  and  desired  the  support  of  his 
knowledge,  as  she  had  desired  Ulick's  knowledge  when  she 
was  studying  Isolde.  Ulick's  technical  knowledge  had 
been  useful  to  her;  upon  it  she  had  raised  herself,  through 
it  she  had  attained  her  idea.  And  in  the  same  way  ]M<>n- 
signor's  knowledge  on  all  points  of  doctrine  would  free  her 
from  doubt.  Then  she  would  be  able  to  rise  above  the 
degradation  of  earthly  passion  to  that  purer  and  higher 
passion,  the  love  of  God.  Doctrine  she  did  not  love  for  its 
own  sake  as  Monsignor  loved  it.  She  regarded  it  as  the 
musician  regarded  crotchets  and  quavers,  as  a  means  of  ex- 
pression; and  she  now  felt  that  without  doctrine  she  could 
not  acquire  the  love  which  she  desired;  without  doctrine 
she  could  not  free  herself  from  the  bondage  of  the  flc-h. 
and  every  moment  the  temptation  to  give  her  soul  into  his 
kci-ping  grew  more  irresistible.  Rising  from  her  chair,  she 
said — 

"Will  you  hear  my  confession  now,  Monsignor?" 


EVELYN  INNES.  357 

The  priest  looked  at  her,  his  narrow,  hard  face  concen- 
trated in  an  ardent  scrutiny. 

"  Certainly,  my  child,  if  you  think  you  are  sufficiently 
prepared." 

"  I  must  confess  now ;  I  could  not  put  it  off  again ;  " 
and  glancing  round  the  room,  she  slipped  suddenly  upon 
her  knees. 

The  priest  put  on  his  stole  and  murmured  a  Latin 
prayer,  making  the  sign  of  the  Cross  over  the  head  of  his 
penitent. 

"  I  fear  I  shall  never  remember  all  my  sins.  I  have 
been  living  in  mortal  sin  so  many  years." 

"  I  remember  that  you  spoke  to  me  of  intellectual  diffi- 
culties— concerning  faith.  You  see  now,  my  dear  child, 
that  you  were  deceiving  yourself.  Your  real  difficulties 
were  quite  different." 

"  I  think  that  my  doubts  were  sincere,"  Evelyn  replied 
tremblingly,  for  she  felt  that  Monsignor  expected  her  to 
agree  with  him. 

"  If  your  doubts  were  sincere,  what  has  removed  them  ? 
What  has  convinced  you  of  the  existence  of  a  future  life? 
That,  I  believe,  was  one  of  your  chief  difficulties.  Have 
you  examined  the  evidence  ?  " 

Evelyn  murmured  that  that  sense  of  right  and  wrong 
which  she  had  never  been  able  to  drive  out  of  her  heart 
implied  the  existence  of  God. 

"  But  savages,  to  whom  the  Scriptures  are  unknown, 
have  a  sense  of  right  and  wrong.  Those  who  lived  before 
the  birth  of  Christ — the  Greeks  and  Romans — had  a  sense 
of  right  and  wrong." 

Knowing  that  the  priest's  absolution  depended  upon  her 
acceptance  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation,  and  the 
dogma  of  the  apostolic  succession  regarding  the  birth  of 
Christ,  she  strove  to  believe  as  a  little  child.  But  it  was 
her  sins  of  the  flesh  that  she  wanted  to  confess,  the  cocoa- 
nut  matting  was  sore  to  kneel  upon,  and  this  argument 
about  a  future  life  had  begun  to  seem  out  of  place.  She 
felt  the  Church  to  be  necessary  to  her,  and  that  its 
teaching  coincided  with  her  deepest  feeling  seemed  to  her 
enough.  But  Monsignor  was  insistent,  and  he  pressed 
dogma  after  dogma  upon  her.  All  the  while  the  cocoa-nut 
matting  ate  into  her  knees,  and  she  was  perplexed  by  re- 


358  EVELYN  INNES. 

membrances  of  her  transgressions.  How  to  speak  of  them 
she  did  not  know,  and  she  was  haunted  and  terrified  by 
the  idea  of  concealing  anything  which  would  invalidate 
her  confession.  She  availed  herself  of  the  first  pause  to 
tell  him  that  she  had  lived  with  Owen  Asher  for  the  last 
six  years.  The  priest  did  not  trouble  to  inquire  further, 
but  she  felt  that  she  must  tell  all. 

"  You  have  said  enough  on  that  point,"  he  answered,  to 
her  great  relief.  But  at  that  moment  she  remembered 
Ulick,  and  she  felt  that  she  must  mention  him.  To  do  so 
she  had  again  to  interrupt  the  priest. 

"  But  I  must  tell  you — Sir  Owen  was  not  the  only  one  " 
she  bowed  her  head — "  there  was  another."  Then,  yield- 
ing to  the  temptation  to  explain  herself,  she  told  Monsignor 
how  it  was  this  second  sin  that  had  awakened  her  con- 
science. She  had  tried  to  look  upon  Sir  Owen  as  her  hus- 
band. "  But  one  night  at  the  theatre,  during  the  per- 
formance of  '  Tristan  and  Isolde,'  I  sinned  with  this  sec- 
ond man." 

"  And  this  showed  you,  my  dear  child,  the  impossibility 
of  a  moral  life  for  one  who  was  born  a  Catholic  except 
when  protected  by  the  doctrine  and  the  sacraments  of  our 
Holy  Church.  And  that  brings  us  back  to  the  point  from 
which  we  started — the  necessity  of  an  unquestioning  ac- 
ceptance of  the  entire  doctrine,  and,  I  may  add,  a  general 
acquiescence  in  Catholic  belief.  It  seems  strange  to  you 
that  I  am  more  anxious  about  your  sins  against  faith  than 
your  sins  of  the  flesh.  It  is  because  I  know  that  without 
faith  you  will  fall  again.  It  is  because  I  know  the  danger, 
the  seduction  of  the  theory  that  even  if  there  be  neither 
hell  nor  heaven,  yet  the  obligation  to  lead  a  moral  life  ex- 
ists. Such  theory  is  in  essence  Protestantism  and  a  de- 
licious flattery  of  the  vanity  of  human  nature.  It  has  been 
the  cause  of  the  loss  of  millions  of  souls.  You  yourself  are 
a  living  testimony  of  the  untrustworthiness  of  this  ^lirltrr, 
and  it  is  entirely  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  teaching 
of  the  Church,  which  is  that  we  must  lead  a  moral  life  in 
order  to  gain  heaven  and  avoid  the  pain  of  hell." 

She  leaned  heavily  on  the  table  to  relieve  her  knees 
from  as  much  weight  as  possible,  and  she  thought  of  the 
possibility  of  getting  her  handkerchief  out  of  her  pocket 
and  placing  it  under  her.  But  when  her  confession  turned 


EVELYN  INNES.  359 

from  her  sins  against  faith  to  her  sins  of  the  flesh,  she  for- 
got the  pain  of  her  knees. 

"  There  is  one  more  question  I  must  ask  you.  You  have 
lived  with  this  man  as  his  mistress  for  six  years,  but  what 
is  more  important,  is  whether  you  deliberately  avoided 
the  probable  consequences  of  your  sin — I  mean  in  regard 
to  children  ? " 

"  If  we  sin  we  must  needs  avoid  the  consequences  of  our 
sin.  I  know  that  it  is  forbidden — but  my  profession — I 
had  to  think  of  others — my  father " 

"  Your  answer,  my  dear  child,  does  not  surprise  me.  It 
shows  me  into  what  depths  you  have  fallen.  That  you 
should  think  like  this  is  part  of  the  teaching  of  the  man 
whose  object  was  to  undermine  your  faith;  it  is  part  of  the 
teaching  of  Darwin  and  Huxley  and  Spencer.  You  were 
persuaded  that  to  live  with  a  man  to  whom  you  were  not 
married  differed  in  no  wise  from  living  with  your  husband. 
The  result  has  proved  how  false  is  such  teaching.  The 
sacrament  of  marriage  was  instituted  to  save  the  weak  from 
the  danger  of  temptation,  and  human  nature  is  essentially 
weak,  and  without  the  protection  of  the  Church  it  falls. 
The  doctrine  of  the  Church  is  our  only  safeguard.  But 
that  you  should  have  proved  unfaithful  to  this  man — this 
second  sin  which  shocked  you  so  much,  and  which  I  am 
thankful  awakened  in  you  a  sense  of  sin,  is  not  more  im- 
portant than  to  thwart  the  design  of  Nature.  It  is  im- 
portant that  you  should  understand  this,  for  an  under- 
standing on  this  point  will  show  you  how  false,  how  contra- 
dictory, is  the  teaching  of  the  naturalistic  philosophy  in 
which  you  placed  your  trust.  These  men  put  aside  re- 
vealed religion  and  refer  everything  to  Nature,  but  they 
do  not  hesitate  to  oppose  the  designs  of  Nature  when  it 
suits  their  purpose.  The  doctrine  of  the  Church  has  al- 
ways been  one  wife,  one  husband.  Polygamy  and  polyan- 
dry are  relatively  sterile.  It  is  the  acknowledged  wife  and 
1he  acknowledged  husband  that  are  fruitful;  it  is  the  hus- 
band and  wife  who  furnish  the  world  with  men  and  heaven 
with  souls,  whereas  the  lover  and  the  mistress  fulfil  no  pur- 
pose, they  merely  encumber  the  world  with  their  vice,  they 
are  useless  to  Nature,  and  are  hateful  in  God's  sight;  the 
nations  that  do  not  cast  them  out  soon  become  decrepit. 
If  we  go  to  the  root  of  things,  we  find  that  the  law  of  the 


360  EVELYN  INNES. 

Church  coincides  very  closely  with  the  law  of  Nature,  and 
that  the  so-called  natural  sciences  are  but  a  nineteenth 
century  figment.  I  hope  all  this  is  quite  clear  to  you  ? " 

Evelyn  acquiesced.  Her  natural  instinct  forbade  her 
the  original  sin — what  happened  after  did  not  appeal  to 
her;  she  could  feel  no  interest  in  the  question  he  had 
raised.  But  she  was  determined  to  avoid  all  falsehood — 
on  that  question  her  instinct  was  again  explicit — and  when 
he  returned  again  in  his  irritation  at  her  insubordination 
to  his  ideas,  and  questioned  her  regarding  her  belief  as  to 
a  future  life,  her  answer  was  so  doubtful  that  after  a  mo- 
ment's hesitation  he  said — 

"  If  you  are  not  convinced  on  so  cardinal  a  point  of 
dogma,  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  give  you  absolution." 

"  Do  not  deny  me  your  absolution.  I  cannot  face  my 
life  without  some  sign  of  forgiveness.  I  believe — I  think 
I  believe.  You  probe  too  deeply.  Sometimes  it  seems  to 
me  that  there  must  be  a  future  life,  sometimes  it  seems  to 
me — that  it  would  be  too  terrible  if  we  were  to  live  again." 

"  It  would  be  too  terrible  indeed,  my  dear  child,  if  we 
were  to  live  again  unassoiled,  unpurified,  in  all  our  miser- 
able imperfections.  But  these  have  been  removed  by  the 
priest's  absolution,  by  the  sinner's  repentance  in  this  world 
and  by  purgatory  in  the  next.  Those  who  have  the  happi- 
ness to  live  in  the  sight  of  God  are  without  stain." 

"  I  only  know  that  I  must  lead  a  moral  life,  and  that 
religion  will  help  me  to  do  so.  I  try  to  speak  the  truth, 
but  the  truth  shifts  and  veers,  and  in  trying  to  tell  the 
whole  truth  perhaps  I  have  an  impression  that  I  believe 
less  than  I  do.  You  must  make  allowance  for  my  igno- 
rance and  incapacity.  I  cannot  find  words  as  you  do  to 
express  myself.  Do  not  refuse  me  absolution,  for  without 
it  I  shall  not  have  strength  to  persevere.  ...  I  fear  what 
may  become  of  me.  If  you  knew  the  effort  it  has  cost  mo 
to  come  to  you.  I  have  not  slept  for  many  nights  for 
thinking  of  my  sins." 

"  There  is  one  promise  you  must  make  me  before  I  give 
you  absolution;  you  must  not  seek  either  of  these  men 
again  who  have  been  to  you  a  cause  of  sin." 

The  pain  from  her  knees  was  expressed  in  her  voice, 
and  it  was  almost  with  a  cry  that  she  answered — 

"  But  I  have  promised  to  sing  his  opera." 


EVELYN  INNES.  361 

"I  thought,  my  dear  child,  that  you  told  me  you  in- 
tended to  give  up  the  stage.  I  feel  bound  to  tell  you  that 
I  do  not  see  how  you  are  to  remain  on  the  stage  if  you  wish 
to  lead  a  new  life." 

"  I  have  been  kneeling  a  long  while,"  and  a  cry  escaped 
her,  so  acute  was  the  pain.  She  struggled  to  her  feet  and 
stood  leaning  against  the  table,  waiting  for  the  pain  to  die 
out  of  her  limbs.  "  The  other  man  is  father's  friend.  If  I 
tell  him  or  if  I  write  to  him  that  he  may  not  come  to  the 
house,  father  will  suspect.  Then  I  have  promised  to  sing 
his  opera.  Oh,  Monsignor " 

"  These  difficulties,"  said  Monsignor,  as  he  rose  from  his 
chair,  "  appear  to  you  very  serious.  You  are  overcome  by 
their  importance  because  you  have  not  adequately  realised 
the  awfulness  of  your  state  in  the  sight  of  God.  If  you 
were  to  die  now,  your  soul  would  be  lost.  Once  you  have 
grasped  this  central  fact  in  its  full  significance,  the  rest 
will  seem  easy.  I  will  lend  you  a  book  which  I  think  will 
help  you." 

"  But,  Monsignor,  are  you  going  to  refuse  me  your 
absolution  ? " 

"  My  dear  child,  you  are  in  doubt  regarding  the  essen- 
tial doctrine  of  the  resurrection,  and  you  are  unable  to 
promise  me  not  to  see  one  of  the  men  who  have  been  to  you 
a  cause  of  sin." 

Her  clear,  nervous  vision  met  the  dry,  narrow  vision 
that  was  the  priest's,  and  there  was  a  pause  in  the  conflict 
of  their  wills.  He  saw  that  his  penitent  was  moved  to 
the  depth  of  her  being,  and  had  lost  control  of  herself.  He 
feared  to  send  her  away  without  absolution,  yet  he  felt 
that  she  must  be  forced  into  submission — she  must  accept 
the  entire  doctrine  of  the  Church.  He  could  not  under- 
stand, and  therefore  could  not  sympathise  with  her  hesi- 
tation on  points  of  doctrine.  If  the  penitent  accepted  the 
Church  as  the  true  Church,  conscience  was  laid  aside  for 
doctrine.  The  value  of  the  Church  was  that  it  relieved  the 
individual  of  the  responsibility  of  life.  So  it  was  by  an 
effort  of  will  that  he  retained  his  patience.  He  was  de- 
termined to  reduce  her  to  his  mind,  but  he  was  instinctive- 
ly aware  of  the  danger  of  refusing  her  absolution ;  to  do  so 
might  fling  her  back  upon  agnosticism.  He  was  contend- 
ing with  vast  passions.  An  unexpected  wave  might  carry 


362  EVELYN   INNES. 

her  beyond  his  reach.  The  stakes  were  high;  he  was  play- 
ing for  her  soul  with  Owen  Asher.  He  had  decided  to  yield 
a  point  if  necessary,  but  his  voice  was  so  kind,  so  irre- 
sistibly kind,  that  she  heard  nothing  but  it.  However  she 
might  think  when  she  had  left  him,  she  could  not  with- 
stand the  kindness  of  that  voice;  it  seemed  to  enter  into 
her  life  like  some  extraordinary  music  or  perfume.  He 
could  see  the  effect  he  was  producing  on  her;  he  watched 
her  eyes  growing  bright  until  a  slight  dread  crossed  his 
mind.  She  seemed  like  one  fascinated,  trembling  in  bonds 
that  were  loosening,  and  that  in  the  next  moment  would 
break,  leaving  her  free — perhaps  to  throw  herself  into  his 
arms,  and  did  not  dare  to  withdraw  his  eyes.  An  awful 
moment  passed,  and  she  turned  slowly  as  if  to  leave  the 
room.  But  at  the  moment  of  so  doing  a  light  seemed  to 
break  upon  her  brain ;  where  there  was  darkness  there  was 
light.  He  saw  her  walk  suddenly  forward.  She  threw  her- 
self upon  her  knees  at  the  table,  and  like  one  to  whom 
speech  had  suddenly  come  back,  she  said — 

"  I  believe  in  our  holy  Church  and  all  that  she  teaches. 
Father,  I  beseech  you  to  absolve  me  from  my  sins." 

So  striking  was  the  change  that  the  priest  himself  was 
cowed  by  it,  and  his  personal  pride  in  his  conquest  of  her 
soul  was  drowned  in  a  great  awe.  He  had  first  to  thank 
God  for  having  chosen  him  as  the  instrument  of  his  will, 
and  then  he  spoke  to  Evelyn  of  the  wonder  and  magnitude 
of  God's  mercies.  That  at  the  very  height  of  her  artistic 
career  he  should  have  roused  her  to  a  sense  of  her  own 
exceeding  sinfulness  was  a  miracle  of  his  grace. 

His  presence  by  her  at  that  moment  was  a  balm.  She 
heard  him  say  that  life  would  not  be  an  easy  one,  but  that 
she  must  not  be  discouraged,  that  she  must  remember  that 
she  had  made  her  peace  with  God,  and  would  derive 
strength  from  his  sacraments.  An  extraordinary  sweetness 
came  over  her,  she  seemed  borne  away  upon  a  delicious 
sweetness;  she  was  conscious  of  an  extraordinary  inward 
presence.  She  did  not  dare  to  look  up,  or  even  to  think,  but, 
buried  herself  in  prayer,  experiencing  all  the  while  the  most 
wonderful  and  continuous  sensation  of  delight.  She  had 
been  racked  and  torn,  and  had  fallen  at  his  feet  a  helpless 
mass  of  suffering  humanity.  He  had  healed  hor,  and  she 
felt  hope  and  life  returning  to  her  again,  and  sufficient 


EVELYN  IXNES.  363 

strength  to  get  up  and  continue  her  way.  Never  again 
would  she  be  alone;  he  would  be  always  near  to  guide  her. 
She  heard  him  tell  her  that  she  must  recite  daily  for  pen- 
ance the  hymn  veni  sanctus  spiritus,  and  the  thought  of 
this  obedience  to  him  refreshed  her  as  the  first  draught 
of  spring  water  refreshes  the  wanderer  who  for  weeks  has 
hesitated  between  the  tortures  of  thirst  and  the  foul  water 
of  brackish  desert  pools.  She  was  conscious  that  he  was 
making  the  sign  of  the  cross  over  her  bowed  head,  the 
murmured  Latin  formula  sounded  strangely  familiar  and 
delicious  in  her  ears,  with  the  more  clearly  enunciated 
"  Ego  te  absolvo "  towards  the  close.  In  that  supreme 
moment  for  which  she  had  longed,  the  last  traces  of  Owen's 
agnostic  teaching  seemed  to  fall  from  her,  and  she  was 
carried  back  to  the  days  of  her  girlhood,  to  the  days  of  her 
old  prayer-book,  a  "  Garden  of  the  Soul "  bound  in  ivory ; 
and  she  rose  from  her  knees,  weak,  but  happy  as  a  con- 
valescent. 

"  I  hope  you  will  sleep  well  to-night,"  said  Honsignor, 
kindly,  noticing  the  signs  of  physical  exhaustion  in  Evelyn 
as  she  stood  mechanically  drawing  down  her  veil  and  put- 
ting on  her  gloves.  "  A  good  conscience  is  the  best  of  all 
narcotics."  Evelyn  smiled  through  her  tears,  but  could  not 
trust  herself  to  speak.  "  But  I  don't  really  like  you  living 
alone  in  Park  Lane.  It  is  too  great  a  strain  on  your  nerves. 
Could  you  not  go  to  your  father's  for  a  time  ? " 

"  Yes,  perhaps,  I  don't  know.  Dear  father  would  like 
to  have  me." 

The  Mass  he  was  to  say  to-morrow  he  would  offer  up 
for  her.  Her  joy  grew  more  intense,  and  in  a  sort  of  spir- 
itual intoxication  she  identified  herself  with  the  faith  of 
her  childhood.  Life  again  presented  possibilities  of  infinite 
perfection,  and  she  was  astonished  that  the  difficulties 
which  she  had  thought  insuperable  had  been  so  easily  over- 
come. 

All  that  evening  she  thought  of  God  and  his  sacra- 
ments, and  remembering  the  moment  when  his  grace  had 
descended  upon  her  and  all  had  become  clear,  she  perforce 
believed  in  a  miracle — a  miracle  of  grace  had  certainly 
happened. 

She  looked  forward  to  the  moment  when  her  maid  would 
leave  the  room,  and  she  would  throw  herself  on  her  knees 


364  EVELYN  IXNES. 

and  lose  herself  in  prayer,  as  she  had  lost  herself  when  she 
knelt  beside  Monsignor,  and  he  absolved  her  from  sin.  But 
when  the  door  closed  and  she  was  alone,  she  could  not  over- 
come an  infinite  lassitude;  she  was  incapable  of  prayer,  she 
only  desired  sleep.  Her  whole  mind  seemed  to  have  veered. 
She  had  exaggerated  everything,  conducted  herself  strange- 
ly, hysterically,  and  her  prayers  were  repeated  without 
ardour,  almost  indifferently. 


XXXII. 

SHE  could  not  account  to  herself  for  the  extraordinary 
relief  she  had  derived  from  her  confession.  For  years  she 
had  battled  with  life  alone,  with  no  light  to  guide  her, 
blown  hither  and  thither  by  the  gusts  of  her  own  emotions. 
But  now  she  was  at  peace,  she  was  reconciled  to  the 
Church;  she  would  never  be  alone  again.  The  struggle  of 
lier  life  still  lay  before  her,  and  yet  in  a  sense  it  was  a 
thing  of  the  past.  She  felt  like  a  ship  that  has  passed  from 
the  roar  of  the  surf  into  the  shelter  of  the  embaying  land, 
and  in  the  distance  stretched  the  long  peacefulness  of  the 
winding  harbour. 

The  solution  of  her  monetary  obligations  to  Sir  Owen 
still  perplexed  her.  She  regretted  not  having  laid  the  mat- 
ter before  Monsignor,  and  looked  forward  to  doing  so. 
She  could  hear  his  clear,  explicit  voice  telling  her  what  she 
must  do,  and  guidance  was  such  a  sweet  thing.  He  would 
say  that  to  try  to  calculate  hotel  bills  and  railway  fares  was 
out  of  the  question;  but  if  she  had  said  that  the  money  Sir 
Owen  had  advanced  her  to  pay  Madame  Savelli  was  to  be 
considered  as  a  debt,  she  must  offer  to  return  it.  She  knew 
that  Owen  would  not  accept  it.  It  would  be  horrid  of  him 
if  he  did,  but  it  would  be  still  more  horrid  of  her  if  she  did 
not  offer  to  return  it. 

She  had  not  really  begun  to  make  money  till  the  last 
few  years,  and  as  there  had  been  no  need  for  her  to  make 
money,  she  had  sacrificed  money  to  her  pleasure  and  to 
Owen's.  She  had  refused  profitable  engagements  because 
Owen  wanted  her  to  go  yachting,  or  because  IIL>  wanted  to 


EVELYN  IXNES.  365 

go  to  Riversdale  to  hunt,  or  because  she  did  not  like  the 
conductor.  So  it  happened  that  she  had  very  little  money 
— about  five  thousand  pounds,  and  her  jewellery  would 
fetch  about  half  what  was  paid  for  it. 

If  she  were  to  remain  on  the  stage  another  year  she 
could  perhaps  treble  the  amount,  and  to  leave  the  stage 
she  would  have  to  provide  herself  with  an  adequate  income. 
There  was  the  tiara  which  the  subscribers  to  the  opera  in 
New  York  had  presented  her  with — that  would  fetch  a 
good  deal.  It  didn't  become  her,  but  it  recalled  a  time  of 
her  life  that  was  very  dear  to  her,  and  she  would  be  sorry 
to  part  with  it.  But  from  the  point  of  view  of  ornament, 
she  liked  better  the  band  of  diamonds  which  a  young  Rus- 
sian prince  had  sent  to  her  anonymously;  a  few  nights 
after,  she  had  been  introduced  to  him  at  a  ball.  His  eyes 
went  at  once  to  the  diamonds,  a  look  of  rapture  had  come 
into  his  face,  and  she  had  at  once  suspected  he  was  the 
sender.  They  had  danced  many  times,  and  retired  for  long, 
eager  talks  into  distant  corners.  She  had  found  him  wait- 
ing for  her  at  the  stage  door.  Owen  was  away,  and  he 
had  begged  her  to  meet  him  the  following  day  in  a  park 
outside  the  city.  He  was  attractive,  young,  and  she  was 
alone.  She  had  thought  that  she  liked  him,  and  it  was 
exciting  to  meet  him  in  this  distant  park,  their  carriages 
waiting  for  them  below  the  hill.  She  could  still  see  the 
grey,  lowering  sky  and  the  trees  hanging  in  green  masses; 
she  had  thought  all  the  time  it  was  going  to  rain.  She 
remembered  his  pale,  interesting  face  and  his  eager,  in- 
sinuating voice.  But  he  had  had  to  leave  St.  Petersburg 
the  next  day.  They  had  written  to  each  other.  It  was  one 
of  those  things  that  had  not  happened.  How  strange !  She 
might  have  liked  him  very  much.  How  strange,  for  she 
never  would  see  him.  And  she  sat  dreaming  a  long  while. 

Her  jewels  were  worth  a  great  deal  of  money.  A  clasp, 
composed  of  two  large  emerald  bosses  set  with  curious  an- 
tique gems,  Owen  had  given  her  when  she  played  Brunn- 
hilde.  The  necklace  of  gem  intaglios,  in  gold  Etruscan 
filigree  settings,  he  had  given  her  for  her  Elsa — more  than 
her  Elsa  was  worth.  For  Elizabeth  he  had  given  her  ropes 
of  equal-sized  pearls,  and  the  lustre  of  the  surfaces  was 
considered  extraordinary.  For  Isolde  he  had  given  her 
strings  of  black  pearls  which  the  jewellers  of  Europe  had 


366  EVELYN  IXXES. 

been  collecting  for  more  than  a  year.  Every  pearl  had 
the  same  depth  of  colour,  and  hanging  from  it  was  a  large 
black  brilliant  set  in  a  mass  of  white  brilliants.  He  had 
hung  it  round  her  neck  as  she  went  on  the  stage,  and  she 
had  had  only  time  to  clasp  his  hands  and  say  "  dearest." 
These  presents  alone,  she  thought,  could  not  be  worth  less 
than  ten  thousand  pounds. 

She  kept  her  jewels  in  a  small  iron  safe;  it  stood  in 
her  dressing-room  under  her  wash-hand  stand,  and  Merat 
surprised  her  two  hours  later  sitting  on  her  bed,  with  every- 
thing, down  to  the  rings  which  she  wore  daily,  spread  over 
the  counterpane.  The  maid  gave  her  mistress  a  sharp  look, 
remarking  that  she  hoped  Mademoiselle  did  not  miss  any- 
thing. In  her  hand  there  was  a  brooch  consisting  of  three 
large  emeralds  set  with  diamonds;  she  often  wore  it  at  the 
front  of  her  dress,  it  went  particularly  well  with  a  flowered 
silk  which  Owen  always  admired.  She  calculated  the  price 
it  would  fetch,  and  at  the  same  time  was  convinced  that 
Monsignor's  permission  to  sing  on  the  concert  platform, 
and  possibly  to  go  to  Bayreuth  to  sing  Kundry,  would  not 
affect  her  decision.  She  wanted  to  leave  the  stage.  Half 
measures  did  not  appeal  to  her  in  the  least.  If  she  was 
to  give  up  the  stage,  she  must  give  it  up  wholly.  It  must 
be  a  thing  over  and  done  with,  or  she  must  remain  on  the 
stage  and  sing  for  the  good  of  Art  and  her  lovers.  Since 
that  was  no  longer  possible,  she  preferred  never  to  sing  a 
note  again  in  public.  The  worst  wrench  of  all  was  her 
promise  to  Monsignor  not  to  sing  Grania,  and  since  she  had 
made  that  sacrifice,  she  could  not  dally  with  lesser  things. 
Then,  resuming  her  search  among  her  jewellery,  she  se- 
lected the  few  things  she  would  like  to  keep.  She  examined 
a  cameo  brooch  set  in  filigree  gold,  ornamented  with  old 
rose  diamonds,  and  she  picked  up  a  strange  ring  which  a 
man  whom  Owen  knew  had  taken  from  the  finger  of  a 
mummy.  It  was  a  large  emerald  set  in  plain  gold.  A  man 
who  had  been  present  at  the  unswathing  of  this  princess, 
dead  at  least  three  thousand  years,  had  managed  to  secure 
it,  and  Owen  had  paid  him  a  large  sum  for  it.  She  put  it 
on  her  finger,  and  decided  to  keep  a  dozen  other  rings,  the 
earrings  she  wore,  and  a  few  bracelets.  The  rest  of  her 
jewellery  she  would  sell,  if  Owen  refused  to  have  them  back. 
Of  course  there  would  be  her  teaching;  she  could  not  live 


EVELYN  INNES.  367 

in  Pulwich  doing  nothing,  and  would  take  up  her  mother's 
singing  classes.  .  .  . 

Her  mother  had  lost  her  voice  in  the  middle  of  her 
career,  and  her  daughter  had  abandoned  the  stage  at  the 
moment  of  her  greatest  triumph !  Looking  at  her  jewels 
scattered  all  over  the  bed,  Evelyn  wondered  what  was 
going  to  happen  to  her.  Was  she  really  going  to  leave  the 
stage?  She — Evelyn  Innes?  When  she  thought  of  it, 
it  seemed  impossible.  Was  religion  only  a  craze  that  had 
taken  her  ?  Would  she  go  back  to  Owen,  or  to  other  lovers  ? 
She  would  be  far  happier  saying  her  prayers  at  St.  Joseph's. 
How  strange  it  was;  it  seemed  strange  to  be  herself,  and 
yet  it  was  quite  true.  But  for  how  long?  Remembering 
that  on  Sunday  she  would  partake  of  the  Body  and  Blood 
which  her  Saviour  had  given  for  the  salvation  of  sinners, 
her  soul  suddenly  hushed,  and  catching  sight  of  the  jewels 
which  symbolised  the  sacrifice  she  was  making,  it  seemed 
to  her  that  she  could  afford  much  greater  sacrifices  for 
what  she  was  going  to  receive.  .  .  . 

She  saw  lights  dying  down  in  the  distance,  and  the 
world  which  had  once  seemed  so  desirable  seemed  to  her 
strangely  trivial  and  easily  denied.  Already  she  could 
look  back  at  the  poor  struggling  ones,  struggling  for  what 
to-morrow  will  be  abandoned,  forgotten,  passing  illusions; 
and  she  wondered  how  it  was  that  she  had  not  always 
thought  as  she  thought  to-day.  Her  thoughts  passed  into 
reveries,  and  she  awoke,  remembering  that  Monsignor  had 
told  her  that  he  did  not  like  her  living  alone  in  Park  Lane. 
But  in  Dulwich  she  would  be  with  her  father,  whom  she 
had  long  neglected,  and  she  would  be  near  St.  Joseph's 
and  her  confessor.  At  the  same  moment  she  remembered 
that  she  could  not  write  to  her  lovers  from  Park  Lane. 
She  put  her  jewels  back  in  the  safe,  and  told  Merat  to  pack 
sufficient  things  for  a  month,  and  to  follow  her  with  them 
to  Dulwich.  Merat  asked  for  more  precise  instruction,  but 
Evelyn  said  she  must  use  her  good  sense;  she  was  going 
away  at  once,  and  Merat  must  follow  by  a  later  train. 

"  Then  Mademoiselle  does  not  want  the  carriage  ?  " 

"  No,  I  shall  go  by  train." 

Agnes  told  her  that  Mr.  Tnnes  was  in  the  workroom. 
She  went  straight  upstairs.  The  sight  of  her  father  in  his 
cap  and  apron  mending  an  old  musical  instrument  caused 
24 


368  EVELYN  INNES. 

i 

many  home  scenes  to  flash  across  her  mind,  and  she  did 
not  know  whether  it  was  from  curiosity  or  a  desire  to  please 
him  that  she  asked  the  name  of  the  strange  little  instru- 
ment he  was  repairing.  It  looked  like  an  overgrown  con- 
certina, and  he  explained  that  it  was  a  tiny  virginal,  and 
pointed  out  the  date;  it  was  made  in  1631,  in  Roman  nota- 
tion. 

"  Father,"  she  said,  "  I  have  come  back  to  you ;  we  shall 
never  be  separated  any  more — if  you'll  have  me  back." 

"  Have  you  back,  dear !     What  has  happened  now  ?  " 

He  stood  with  a  chisel  in  his  hand,  and  she  noticed  that 
he  dug  the  point  nervously  into  the  soft  deal  plank.  She 
sat  down  on  a  small  wooden  stool,  and  kicking  the  shavings 
with  her  feet,  she  said — 

"  Father,  a  great  deal  has  happened.  I  have  sent  Owen 
away  ...  I  shall  never  see  him  again ;  I'm  sorry  to  have 
to  speak  about  him  to  you;  you  mustn't  be  angry;  he  was 
very  good  to  me,  and  he  asked  me  to  marry  him;  he  did 
everything — I'm  afraid  I've  broken  his  heart." 

"  You're  very  strange,  Evelyn,  and  I  don't  know  what 
answer  to  make  to  you.  .  .  .  Why  did  you  send  him  away, 
and  why  did  you  refuse  to  marry  him  ? " 

"  I  sent  him  away  because  I  thought  it  was  wrong  to 
live  with  him,  and  I  refused  to  marry  him — well,  I  don't 
know,  father,  I  don't  know  why  I  refused  to  marry  him.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  if  he  had  wished  to  marry  me  he  ought  to 
have  done  so  long  ago." 

"  Is  that  the  only  reason  you  can  give  ?  " 

"  It  is  the  only  reason  I  know.  You  seem  sorry  for 
him,  father,  are  you?  I  hope  you  are.  He  has  been  very 
good  to  me.  I've  often  wished  to  tell  you;  it  has  often 
been  in  my  heart  to  tell  you  that  you  should  not  hate  him. 
He  was  very  good  to  me,  no  one  could  have  been  kinder; 
he  was  very  fond  of  me,  you  must  not  bear  him  any  ill  will." 

"  I  never  said  that  I  bore  him  ill  will.  He  made  you  a 
great  singer,  and  you  say  he  was  very  kind  to  you  and 
wanted  to  marry  you." 

"  Yes,  and  he  was  most  anxious  to  see  you,  and  he  went 
with  me  to  St.  Joseph's  the  Sunday  you  gave  the  great 
"Mass  of  Pope  Marcellus.  He  was  distressed  that  he  could 
not  see  you  to  tell  you  about  the  choir." 

"They  sang  better  that  Sunday  than  tin-  Sunday  you 


EVELYN  INNES.  369 

heard  the  '  Missa  Brevis.'  I  have  got  two  new  trebles. 
One  has  an  exquisite  voice.  I  wish  I  could  get  a  few  good 
altos.  It  was  the  altos  that  were  wrong  when  you  heard  the 
'  Missa  Brevis.'  But  you  didn't  hear  they  were  out  of  tune. 
That  piano  has  falsified  your  ear,  but  it  will  come  back  to 
you." 

"  Dear  father,  how  funny  you  are !  If  nothing  were 
more  wrong  than  my  ear  .  .  ." 

They  glanced  at  each  other  hastily,  and  to  change  the 
subject  he  mentioned  that  he  had  had  a  letter  that  morn- 
ing from  Ulick.  He  had  finished  scoring  the  second  act  of 
Grania,  and  thinking  that  he  was  on  safe  ground,  Mr.  Innes 
told  her  that  Ulick  hoped  to  finish  his  score  in  the  autumn. 
The  third  act  would  not  take  him  long ;  he  had  a  very  com- 
plete sketch  of  the  music,  etc.  "  I  shall  enjoy  going 
through  his  opera  with  him." 

"  Father,  I  don't  know  how  to  tell  you.  Will  you  ever 
forgive  me  or  him.  Ulick  must  not  come  back  here — at 
least  not  while  I  am  here.  Perhaps  I  had  better  go." 

The  chisel  dropped  from  his  hand,  and  he  stood  looking 
at  his  daughter.  His  look  was  pitiful,  and  she  could  not 
bear  to  see  him  shake  his  head  slowly  from  side  to  side. 

"  Poor  father  is  wondering  why  I  am  like  this ;  "  and  to 
interrupt  his  reflections  she  said — 

"  I  don't  know  why  I  am  like  this ;  that's  what  you're 
thinking,  father,  but  henceforth  I'll  be  like  mother  and  my 
aunts.  They  were  all  good  women  ...  I  have  often  won- 
dered why  I  am  like  this."  Their  eyes  met,  and  seized  with 
a  sudden  dread  lest  he  should  think  (if  such  were  really 
the  case)  that  he  was  the  original  cause — she  seemed  to 
read  something  like  that  in  his  eyes — she  said,  "  You  must 
forgive  me,  whatever  I  am;  you  know  that  we've  always 
loved  each  other,  and  we  always  shall.  Nothing  can  come 
between  us;  you  must  be  sorry  for  me,  and  kiss  me,  and 
love  me  more  than  ever,  for  I've  been  very  unhappy.  I 
haven't  told  you  all  I  have  given  up  so  that  I  might  be  a 
good  woman;  it  is  not  easy  to  make  the  sacrifices  I  have 
made,  but  I  am  happier  now  that  I  have  made  them.  Ulick 
— Ulick  must  not  come  here  while  I'm  here,  but  you'll  want 
to  see  him — I  had  better  go.  Father,  dear,  it  is  hard  to 
say  all  these  things.  I've  done  nothing  but  bring  you 
trouble.  Now  I've  robbed  you  of  your  friend.  For  I've 


370  EVELYN  INNES. 

promised  not  to  see  Ulick  again.  If  I  stay  here,  father,  ho 
must  not  come — I'm  ashamed  to  ask  you  this,  but  what  am 
I  to  do?  I  bring  trouble.  Later  on,  perhaps,  but  for  :i 
long  while  he  and  I  must  not  meet." 

Mr.  Innes  stood  looking  at  his  daughter,  and  a  peculiar 
puzzled  expression  had  begun  in  his  eyes,  and  had  spread 
over  his  face.  He  suddenly  shrugged  his  shoulders;  the 
movement  was  like  Evelyn's  shrug,  it  expressed  the  same 
nervous  hopelessness. 

"  I  promised  Monsignor  that  I  would  not  see  either." 

"  You  went  to  confession — to  him  ?  " 

Evelyn  nodded. 

"  But  how  about  Grania  ? " 

"  I'm  not  going  to  sing  Grania.  I've  left  the  stage  for 
good." 

"Left  the  stage?" 

"  Yes,  father,  I've  left  the  stage,  and  I  could  not  go  back 
even  if  Monsignor  were  to  permit  me.  But  you  must  not 
argue  with  me;  I  argued  with  myself  until  I  nearly  went 
mad.  Night  after  night  went  by  sleepless;  I  was  mad 
one  night,  and  should  have  poisoned  myself  if  I  had  not 
found  my  scapular.  But  you  mustn't  question  me.  Some 
day  when  it  is  all  far  away  I'll  tell  you  the  whole  story. 
I  cannot  speak  of  it  at  present,  it  is  all  too  near  me.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  I  have  repented,  and  have  come  to  ask  you  if 
you'll  have  me  back  to  live  with  you  ?  " 

"  You're  my  daughter,  and  you  must  do  as  you  like. 
You  were  always  different  from  anyone  else,  I  cannot  cope 
with  you.  So  you  have  left  the  stage,  left  the  stage !  What 
will  people  think  ?  " 

"  I  could  not  be  a  good  woman  and  remain  on  the  stage, 
that's  what  it  comes  to."  In  spite  of  the  gravity  of  the 
scene,  a  smile  trickled  round  Evelyn's  lips,  for  she  could 
not  help  seeing  her  father  like  a  hen  that  has  hatched  out 
a  duckling.  He  stood  looking  at  her  sadly.  She  had 
come  back — but  what  new  pond  would  she  plunge  into? 
"  I  am  a  very  unsatisfactory  person,  I  know  that.  I  can't 
make  people  happy;  but  there  it  is,  it  can't  be  otherwise. 
If  I  don't  sing  on  the  stage,  I  can  sing  at  your  concerts. 
Come  downstairs  and  let's  have  some  music.  We've  talked 
enough. 

"  What  shall  we  play — a  Bach  sonata  ?    Ah,  I  rcmem- 


EVELYN  INNES.  371 

bcr  this,"  she  said,  catching  sight  of  the  harpsichord  part  of 
a  suite  by  J.  P.  Ramcau,  for  the  harpsichord  and  viola  da 
gamba.  "  Where  is  the  viola  da  gamba  part  ?  " 

"In  the  bottom  of  that  bookcase,  I  think;  don't  you 
remember  it  ?  " 

"  Well,  it  is  some  time  since  I've  played  it,"  she  said, 
smiling,  "  but  I'll  try." 

It  seemed  to  her  that  she  remembered  it  all  wonderfully 
well,  and  she  was  surprised  how  every  phrase  came  up 
correctly  under  her  bow.  But  she  stopped  suddenly. 

"  I  don't  remember  what  comes  next." 

Mr.  Innes  played  the  phrase,  she  played  it  after  him, 
but  she  broke  down  again  a  little  further  on.  It  took  some 
time  to  find  it.  "  No,  not  on  that  shelf,"  cried  Mr.  Innes, 
"  the  next  one ;  not  that  volume,  the  next." 

"  Ah,  yes,  I  remember  the  volume,  about  the  middle  ? " 
When  she  found  the  place  she  said,  "  Oh,  yes,  of  course," 
and  he  answered — - 

"  Ah,  it  seems  simple  enough  now,"  and  they  went  on 
together  to  the  end. 

"  I've  not  lost  much  of  my  playing,  have  I  ?  " 

"A  little  stiffness,  perhaps,  and  you've  lost  your  sense 
of  the  old  forms.  Now  let's  play  this  rondeau  of 
Marais." 

When  they  had  finished,  it  was  dinner-time,  and  after 
dinner  they  had  more  music.  Before  going,  upstairs 
Evelyn  asked  Agnes  if  there  was  any  ink  in  her  room. 
She  had  to  ask  her  father  for  some  writing  paper,  she 
would  have  avoided  doing  so  if  she  could  have  helped  it. 
She  feared  he  would  guess  that  she  was  writing  to  her 
lovers.  She  smiled — so  odd  did  her  scruples  seem  to  her — • 
she  was  writing  to  send  them  away.  Her  father's  house 
was  surely  the  right  place.  If  it  were  to  make  appoint- 
ments, that  would  be  different.  It  was  long  past  midnight 
when  she  read  over  her  letter  to  Owen. 

"  DEAR  OWEN — A  great  deal  has  happened  since  we  last 
met,  and  I  am  convinced  that  it  would  be  unwise  for  me 
to  see  you  in  three  months  as  I  promised.  My  confessor 
is  of  the  same  opinion;  he  thinks  three  months  too  soon, 
and  I  must  obey  him.  I  have  taken  the  step  which  I  hope 
you  will  take  some  day,  for  you  too  are  a  Catholic.  lu  go- 


372  EVELYN  INNES. 

ing  to  confession  and  resolving  not  to  see  you  again,  I  had 
a  long  struggle  with  my  feelings;  but  God  gave  me  grace 
to  overcome  them.  You  know  me  well  enough  by  this  time, 
and  can  have  no  doubt  that  I  could  not  live  with  you  again 
as  your  mistress,  and  as  I  do  not  feel  that  I  could  marry 
you,  no  course  is  open  to  me  but  to  beg  of  you  not  to  writo 
to  me,  or  to  try  to  see  me.  Owen,  I  feel  that  all  this  is  hor- 
rid, that  I  am  horrid  looked  at  from  your  side.  I  cannot 
seem  anything  else.  I  hate  it  all,  but  it  has  to  be  done. 
Perhaps  one  of  these  days  you  will  see  things  as  I  do. 

"  I  owe  you — I  do  not  know  how  much,  but  I  owe  you 
a  great  deal  of  money.  I  remember  saying  that  Savclli's 
lessons  were  to  be  considered  as  a  debt,  also  the  expenses 
of  the  house  in  the  Rue  Balzac.  You  never  would  tell  mo 
what  the  rent  of  that  house  was,  but  as  well  as  I  can  calcu- 
late, I  owe  you  a  thousand  pounds  for  that  year  in  Paris." 
(Evelyn  paused.  "  It  must  be,"  she  thought,  "  much  more, 
but  it  would  be  difficult  for  me  to  pay  more.") 

"  You  have,"  she  continued,  "  paid  for  a  hundred  other 
things  besides  Savelli's  lessons  and  the  house  in  the  Rue- 
Balzac,  but  it  would  be  impossible  to  make  out  a  correct 
account.  I  feel,  too,  that  you  gave  me  the  greater  part  of 
my  jewellery  thinking  that  one  day  I  would  be  your  wife; 
you  would  not  have  given  me  so  much  if  you  had  not 
thought  so.  Therefore  I  feel  it  is  only  just  to  offer  you 
the  whole  of  it  back.  I  will  only  ask  you  to  allow  me  to 
keep  a  few  trifles — the  earrings  you  bought  for  me  the  day 
we  arrived  in  Paris,  the  mummy's  ring,  etc.,  not  more  than 
half-a-dozen  things  in  all.  I  should  like  to  keep  these  in 
memory  of  a  time  which  I  ought  to  forget,  but  which  I  am 
afraid  I  shall  never  have  the  courage  even  to  try  to  for- 
get. Dear  Owen,  I  cannot  tell  you  why  I  cannot  marry 
you,  I  only  know  that  I  cannot.  I  am  obeying  an  instinct 
far  stronger  than  I,  and  I  cannot  struggle  against  it  any 
longer. 

"  One  day  perhaps  we  may  meet — but  it  may  not  be  for 
years,  until  we  are  both  quite  different. 

"  Sincerely  yours, 

"  EVELYN  INNES." 

The  moment  she  had  written  the  address,  she  tlmnv  the 
pen  aside,  and  sat  striving  against  au  uncontrollable  sense 


EVELYN  INNES.  3Y3 

of  misery.  At  last  her  pent-up  tears  ran  over  her  eyelids. 
She  flung  herself  on  her  bed,  and  lay  weeping,  shaken  by 
short,  choking  sobs.  All  her  courage  of  the  morning  had 
forsaken  her ;  she  could  not  face  her  new  life,  she  could  not 
send  away  Owen.  Her  inmost  life  rose  in  revolt.  Why 
was  this  new  sacrifice  demanded  of  her?  Why  was  her  life 
to  be  made  so  hard,  so  impossible  for  her  to  endure?  She 
felt  she  could  not  live  in  the  life  which  she  foresaw  awaited 
her.  Then  she  felt  that  she  was  being  tried  beyond  the 
endurance  of  any  woman.  But  the  storm  did  not  last,  her 
sobs  died  away.  She  sat  up,  mopping  her  eyes  with  a 
soaking  pocket  handkerchief,  and  utterly  exhausted  by  the 
violence  of  her  emotions,  she  began  to  undress.  She  felt 
the  impossibility  of  saying  her  prayers,  her  one  longing 
was  for  sleep,  oblivion;  she  wished  herself  dead,  and  was 
too  worn  out  to  put  the  thought  from  her,  though  she  knew 
it  was  wrong. 

In  the  morning  the  first  thing  she  saw  was  the  letter  to 
Owen.  There  it  was !  And  every  word  and  letter  sank 
into  her  brain.  "  Sir  Owen  Asher,  Bart.,  Riversdalc 
Northamptonshire."  She  would  have  to  post  it,  and  never 
again  would  she  see  him.  She  questioned  the  right  of  tho 
priest  in  obtaining  from  her  a  promise  not  to  see  him,  so 
long  as  she  did  not  sin.  But  Owen  was  an  approximate 
cause  of  mortal  sin.  .  .  . 

Ashamed  of  her  instability,  and  feeling  herself  unwor- 
thy and  no  longer  pure  as  absolution  had  made  her,  she 
went  that  afternoon  to  St.  Joseph's,  and  in  confession  laid 
the  matter  before  Monsignor  Mostyn.  Regarding  the 
money  question,  he  approved  of  what  she  had  written  to 
Sir  Owen,  and  he  was  far  more  indulgent  regarding  her 
breakdown  than  she  had  dared  to  hope.  He  had  expected 
some  such  mental  crisis.  It  was  extraordinary  the  strength 
it  gave  her  even  to  see  his  stern,  grave  face;  she  was 
thrilled  by  his  certainty  on  all  points,  and  it  no  longer 
seemed  difficult  to  send  the  letter  she  had  written,  or  to 
write  a  similar  letter  to  Ulick,  which  he  advised  her  to  send 
by  the  same  post.  She  began  it  the  moment  she  got  home, 
and  she  wrote  in  perfect  confidence  and  courage,  the  words 
coming  easily  to  her,  so  easily  that  there  were  times 
when  she  seemed  to  hear  Monsiguor  speaking  over  her 
shoulder. 


374  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  DEAR  ULICK — A  very  great  event  has  happened  in  ray 
life  since  I  saw  you.  The  greatest  event  that  can  happen 
in  any  life — Grace  has  been  vouchsafed  to  me.  Now  I 
understand  how  sinful  my  life  has  been,  as  much  from  a 
human  as  a  religious  point  of  view.  I  deserted  my  dear 
father,  I  left  him  alone  to  live  as  best  he  could.  I  was  not 
even  faithful  to  my  lover.  From  a  worldly  point  of  view 
I  owed  him  everything,  yet  for  the  sake  of  my  passion  for 
you  I  encouraged  myself  for  a  while  to  dwell  on  his  faults, 
to  see  nothing  in  him  but  the  small  and  the  mean.  I 
strove  to  degrade  him  in  my  eyes  so  that  I  might  find  some 
excuse  for  loving  you.  You  were  nice,  Ulick,  you  were 
kind,  you  were  good  to  me,  and  I  was  enthusiastic  about 
your  genius.  One  of  my  greatest  troubles  now  is  that  I 
shall  not  be  able  to  sing  your  opera.  For  a  long  while 
this  very  thing  prevented  my  repentance.  I  said  to  myself, 
*  It  is  impossible,  I  cannot,  I  have  promised,  I  must  do 
what  I  said  I  would  do.  He  will  think  me  hateful  if  I  do 
not  create  the  part.'  But  these  hesitations  between  what 
is  certainly  right  and  what  is  certainly  wrong  existed  in  me 
because  I  did  not  then  perceive  how  very  little  the  things 
of  this  world  are,  compared  with  eternal  things,  and  that 
nothing  matters  compared  with  the  necessity  of  saving  our 
souls.  All  this  is  now  quite  clear  to  me,  and  it  would 
therefore  be  madness  for  me  to  remain  on  the  stage,  rec- 
ognising as  I  do  that  it  is  a  source  of  grave  temptation  to 
me.  You  will  try  to  understand,  dear  Ulick,  you  will  try 
to  look  at  things  from  my  point  of  view.  You  will  see  that 
it  is  impossible  for  me  to  act  otherwise. 

"  I  am  living  now  with  my  father,  and  must  see  not  you 
when  you  return  to  London.  I  have  promised  my  con- 
fessor not  to  see  you.  One  of  these  days,  in  years  to  come, 
when  you  and  I  are  different  beings,  we  may  meet,  but  we 
must  not  see  each  other  at  present.  I  must  beg  of  you  not 
to  write  or  to  try  to  see  me.  My  resolve  is  unalterable,  and 
any  attempt  on  your  part  to  induce  me  to  return  to  my  old 
life  will  be  useless.  It  is  already  far  away  and  inconceiv- 
able to  me.  I  know  that  by  asking  you  not  to  come  to  Dul- 
wich  I  am  robbing  my  father  of  his  friend.  I  have  never 
brought  happiness  to  anyone,  not  to  father,  not  to  Sir 
Owen,  not  to  you,  not  to  myself.  If  other  proof  were 
wanting,  would  not  this  fact  bu  enough  to  convince  mo 


EVELYN  INNES.  375 

that  my  life  has  been  all  wrong?  What  it  will  be  in  the 
future  I  don't  know,  I  have  confidence  in  the  goodness  of 
God  and  in  the  wisdom  of  my  spiritual  adviser. — Sincerely 
yours,  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  P.  8. — In  course  of  conversation  with  my  father,  I 
mentioned  inadvertently  that  you  were  my  lover;  I  begged 
him  not  to  be  angry  with  you,  but  I  know  that  I  should 
not  have  mentioned  your  name.  I  must  ask  you  to  forgive 
me  this  too." 

The  next  day  and  the  day  following  were  lived  within 
herself,  sometimes  viewing  God  far  away,  as  if  at  the  efid 
of  a  great  plain,  and  herself  a  kneeling  penitent  at  the 
other.  She  was  filled  with  thoughts  of  his  infinite  goodness 
and  mercy,  and  of  the  miraculous  intercession  of  the  Vir- 
gin at  the  moment  when  she  was  about  to  commit  a  crime 
that  would  have  lost  her  her  soul  for  ever.  She  went  to 
Mass  daily,  and  took  peculiar  delight  in  reciting  the  hymn 
which  Monsignor  had  given  her  for  a  penance.  She  re- 
gretted it  was  not  more.  It  seemed  to  her  such  a  trivial 
penance,  and  she  reflected  on  the  blackness  of  her  sins,  and 
the  penances  which  the  saints  had  imposed  upon  themselves. 
But  her  chief  desire  was  to  keep  herself  pure  in  thought, 
and  she  read  pious  books  when  she  was  alone,  and  en- 
couraged her  mind  to  dwell  on  the  profound  mystery  in 
which  she  was  going  to  participate,  and  to  believe  in  the 
marvellous  change  it  would  produce  in  her. 

It  was  on  Friday  morning  that  Agnes  handed  her 
Ulick's  letter.  She  did  not  read  it  at  once,  it  lay  on  the 
table  while  she  was  dressing,  and  she  was  uncertain  whether 
it  would  not  be  better  to  put  off  reading  it  until  she  came 
back  from  St.  Joseph's. 

"  Alas,  from  our  first  meeting,  and  before  it,  we  were 
aware  of  the  fate  which  has  overtaken  us.  We  heard  it  in 
our  hearts,  that  numb  restlessness,  that  vague  disquietude, 
that  prophetic  echo  which  never  dies  out  of  ears  attuned 
to  the  music  of  destiny.  .  .  .  Love  you  less,  you  who  are 
the  source  of  all  joy  to  me?  No,  Evelyn,  my  heart  aches 
and  my  brain  is  light  with  grief,  but  the  terrible  certitude 
persists  that  we  are  being  drawn  asunder.  Already  I  see 


376  EVELYN  INNES. 

you,  like  a  ship  that  has  cleared  the  harbour  bar,  amid  the 
tumult  of  the  ocean.  .  .  .  We  are  ships,  and  the  destiny  of 
ships  is  the  ocean,  the  ocean  draws  us  both;  we  have  rested 
as  long  as  may  be,  we  have  delayed  our  departure,  but  the 
tide  has  lifted  us  from  our  moorings.  With  an  agonised 
heart  I  watched  the  sails  of  your  ship  go  up,  and  now  I  see 
that  mine,  too,  are  going  aloft,  hoisted  by  invisible  hands. 
I  look  back  upon  the  bright  days  and  quiet  nights  we  have 
rested  in  this  tranquil  harbour.  Like  ships  that  have  rested 
a  while  in  a  casual  harbour,  blown  hither  by  storms,  we 
part,  drawn  apart  by  the  eternal  magnetism  of  the  sea. 
I  would  go  to  you,  Evelyn,  if  I  could,  and  pray  you  not  to 
leave  me.  But  you  would  not  hear:  destiny  hears  no 
prayers.  In  the  depths  of  our  consciousness,  below  the 
misery  of  the  moment,  there  lies  a  certain  sense  that  our 
ways  are  different  ways,  and  that  we  must  fare  forth  alone, 
whither  we  know  not,  over  the  ocean's  rim;  and  in  this 
sense  of  destiny  we  must  find  comfort.  Will  resignation, 
which  is  the  highest  comfort,  come  to  us  in  time?  My 
eyes  fall  upon  by  music  paper,  and  at  the  same  time  your 
eyes  turn  to  the  crucifix.  Ours  is  the  same  adventure, 
though  a  different  breeze  fills  the  sails,  though  the  prows 
are  set  to  a  different  horizon.  God  is  our  quest — you  seek 
him  in  dogma,  I  in  art. 

"  But,  Evelyn,  my  heart  is  aching  so.  How  awful  the 
word  never,  and  the  years  are  filled  with  its  echoes.  And 
the  wide  ocean  which  lies  outside  the  harbour  is  so  lonely, 
and  I  have  no  heart  for  any  other  joy.  (  May  we  not  meet 
again  ? '  my  heart  cries  from  time  to  time ;  '  may  not  some 
propitious  storm  blow  us  to  the  same  anchorage  again,  into 
the  same  port  ? '  We  should  not  know  each  other :  the  suns 
and  the  seas  we  have  sailed  through  would  render  us  unrec- 
ognisable, we  should  not  know  each  other.  Last  night  I 
wandered  by  the  quays,  and,  watching  the  constellations, 
I  asked  if  we  were  divided  for  ever,  if,  when  the  earth  has 
become  part  and  parcel  of  the  stars,  our  love  might  not 
reappear  in  some  starry  affinity,  in  some  stollar  friendship. 
— Yours,  ULICK  DKAN." 

The  symbol  of  the  ship  soemcd  to  Evelyn  to  express 
the  union  and  the  division  and  tin-  destiny  that  had  over- 
taken them.  Shu  sat  and  pondered,  and  in  her  vision  ships 


EVELYN  INNES.  377 

hailed  each  other  as  they  crossed  in  mid-ocean.  Ships 
drew  together  as  they  entered  a  harbour.  Ships  separated 
as  they  fared  forth,  their  prows  set  towards  different  hori- 
zons. She  sat  absorbed  in  the  mystery  of  destiny.  Like 
two  ships,  they  had  rested  side  by  side  in  a  casual  harbour. 
They  had  loved  each  other  as  well  as  their  different  des- 
tinies had  allowed  them.  None  can  do  more.  She  loved 
him  better — in  a  way — but  he  was  less  to  her  than  Owen. 
She  felt  that,  and  he  had  felt  that.  ...  As  he  said,  if  they 
were  to  meet  again  they  would  not  recognise  each  other,  so 
different  were  the  suns  that  would  shine  upon  them  and 
the  oceans  they  would  travel  through.  She  understood 
what  he  meant,  and  a  prevision  of  her  future  life  seemed 
to  nicker  up  in  her  brain,  like  the  sea  seen  through  a  mist; 
and  through  vistas  in  the  haze  she  saw  the  lonely  ocean, 
and  her  bark  was  already  putting  off  from  the  shore.  All 
she  had  known  she  was  leaving  behind.  The  destiny  of 
ships  is  the  ocean. 

Owen's  letter  she  received  in  the  evening  about  six 
o'clock.  She  changed  colour  at  the  sight  of  it,  and  her 
hand  trembled,  and  she  tore  the  envelope  across  as  she 
opened  it. 

"  You  ask  me  to  make  no  attempt  to  save  you.  You 
ask  me  to  stand  on  the  bank  while  you  struggle  and  arc 
dragged  down  by  the  current.  Evelyn,  I  have  never  dis- 
obeyed your  slightest  wish  before,  but  I  declare  my  right 
to  use  all  means  to  save  you  from  a  terrible  fate.  I  return 
to  London  to  do  so.  God  only  knows  if  I  shall  succeed. 
...  In  any  case  I  hope  you  will  never  allude  again  to  any 
money  questions.  What  I  gave,  I  gave,  and  unless  you 
want  to  kill  me  outright,  never  speak  again  of  returning 
my  presents. — As  ever,  OWEN  ASHER." 

Her  eyes  ran  through  the  lines,  and  her  heart  said,  "  How 
he  loves  me ! "  But  the  temptation  to  see  him  quenched 
instantly  in  remembrance  of  her  Communion,  and  she  tore 
the  letter  hastily  into  four  pieces,  as  if  by  destroying  it  she 
destroyed  the  difficulty  it  had  created  for  her.  She  must 
not  see  him.  But  how  was  she  to  avoid  meeting  him? 
To-inorrow  he  would  be  waiting  in  the  street  for  her,  and 
she  walked  about  the  room  too  agitated  to  think  clearly. 


378  EVELYN  INNES. 

He  seemed  like  the  devil  trying  to  come  between  her  and 
God.  She  must  not  see  him,  of  that  she  was  quite  sure. 
She  would  lock  herself  in  her  room.  But  then  she  would 
miss  Holy  Communion,  and  her  heart  was  set  on  the  Sacra- 
ment; the  Sacrament  alone  could  give  her  strength  to  per- 
severe. To  see  him  and  to  hear  him  would  ruin  her  peace 
of  mind,  and  peace  of  mind  was  essential  to  the  reverent 
reception  of  the  Sacrament.  It  was  lost  already,  or  very 
nearly.  She  stopped  in  her  walk,  she  looked  into  her  soul, 
she  asked  herself  if  any  thought  had  crossed  her  mind 
which  would  render  her  unfit  for  Communion  .  .  .  and  on 
the  spot  she  resolved  to  go  straight  to  Monsignor  and  con- 
sult him.  He  would  advise  her,  he  would  find  some  way 
out  of  the  difficulty.  But  it  was  now  six;  she  could  not 
get  to  St.  Joseph's  before  seven.  It  was  late,  but  she  did 
not  think  he  would  refuse  to  see  her;  he  would  know  that 
it  was  only  a  matter  of  the  greatest  moment  that  would 
bring  her  to  inquire  for  him  at  that  hour. 

It  was  as  she  expected.  Monsignor  did  not  receive  any- 
one so  late  in  the  evening. 

"  Yes,  I  know,  but  I  think  Monsignor  Mostyn  will  see 
me.  Tell  him — tell  him  that  my  business  does  not  admit 
delay." 

She  was  shown  into  the  same  waiting-room.  This 
seemed  to  her  a  favourable  presage,  and  she  offered  up  a 
prayer  that  Monsignor  would  not  refuse  to  see  her;  every- 
thing depended  on  that.  She  listened  for  his  step;  twice 
she  was  mistaken;  at  last  the  door  opened.  It  was  he,  and 
he  guessed,  before  she  had  time  to  speak,  what  had  hap- 
pened. 

"  One  of  those  men,"  he  said,  "  has  come  again  into 
your  life." 

She  nodded,  and,  still  unable  to  speak,  she  searched  in 
her  pocket  for  their  letters. 

"  I  received  these  letters  to-day — one  this  morning,  the 
other,  Sir  Owen's,  just  now.  That  was  why  I  came.  I  felt 
that  I  had  to  sec  you." 

"  Pray  sit  down,  my  child,  you  are  agitated."  He 
handed  her  a  chair. 

"  You  remember  you  said  I  mijrht  go  to  Communion  on 
Snnduy,  and  if  I  were  to  nii-i-t  him  to-morrow  it  would — 
there  is  no  temptation,  I  don't  mean  that — but  I  do  not 


EVELYN  INNES.  379 

wish  to  be  reminded  of  things  which  you  told  me  I  was  to 
try  to  forget." 

The  priest  stood  reading  the  letters,  and  Evelyn  sat 
looking  into  space,  absorbed  in  the  desire  to  escape  from 
Owen.  All  her  faith  was  in  Monsigiior,  and  she  believed 
he  would  be  able  to  save  her  from  Owen's  intrusion. 

"  I  don't  think  you  need  fear  anything  from  Mr.  Dean." 

"  No,  not  from  him." 

Monsignor  continued  to  read  Ulick's  letter.  Evelyn 
wished  he  would  read  Owen's;  Ulick'a  interested  her  not 
in  the  least. 

"  Mr.  Dean  seems  a  very  extraordinary  person.  Does 
he  believe  in  astrology,  the  casting  of  horoscopes,  or  is  it 
mere  affectation  ? " 

"  I  don't  know ;  he  always  talks  like  that.  He  believes, 
or  says  he  believes,  in  Lir  and  the  great  Mother  Dana,  in 
the  old  Irish  Gods.  But,  Monsignor,  please  read  Sir 
Owen's  letter.  I  want  to  know  what  I  am  to  do." 

He  walked  once  across  the  room,  and  when  he  returned 
to  the  table  he  half  said  to  himself,  as  if  his  thoughts  had 
long  outstripped  his  words — 

"  I  am  glad  I  advised  you  to  leave  Park  Lane,  for  of 
course  he  will  go  there  first." 

"He  will  easily  find  out  I'm  at  Dulwich,  he  need  not 
even  ask — he  will  guess  it  at  once." 

"  Yes,  to  be  sure." 

"  If  I  am  not  to  meet  him  I  must  go  away — but  where  ? 
All  my  friends  and  acquaintances  are  his  friends.  You 
would  approve  of  none  of  them,  Monsignor,"  she  said,  smil- 
ing a  little. 

He  did  not  seem  to  hear  her.  Suddenly  he  said,  "I 
think  you  had  better  go  and  spend  a  few  days  at  the  Pas- 
sionist  Convent.  The  Reverend  Mother  sent  you  an  invi- 
tation through  me,  you  remember,  so  we  need  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  proposing  it.  Indeed,  I  feel  confident  that  they 
will  receive  you  with  the  greatest  pleasure.  It  will  do  you 
a  great  deal  of  good.  You  will  have  peace  and  quiet,  my 
child;  you  will  find  yourself  in  an  atmosphere  of  faith 
and  purity  which  cannot  but  be  helpful  to  you  in  your 
present  unsettled  state." 

It  seemed  to  Evelyn  that  that  was  what  she  had  wanted 
all  the  time,  only  she  had  not  been  able  to  say  so.  Yes; 


380  EVELYN  INNES. 

to  spend  a  week  with  those  dear  nuns,  to  sit  in  the  convent 
pardon,  to  kneel  before  the  Blessed  Sacrament  in  the  con- 
vent church,  it  would  be  a  real  spiritual  luxury. 

"  Yes,  I  should  love  to  go,"  she  said.  "  I  feel  it  is  just 
what  I  need.  I  have  so  much  to  think  out,  so  much  to 
learn,  and  at  home  there  are  a  hundred  things  to  dis- 
tract me." 

"  Very  well,  then,  that  is  settled.  I  will  send  the  Rev- 
erend Mother  word  to-morrow;  but  there  is  no  necessity, 
you  can  write  yourself,  and  say  you  are  coming  in  the 
afternoon;  she  will  only  have  to  get  your  room  ready." 

"But,  Monsignor,  my  Communion?  I  had  forgotten 
it  was  from  you  I  was  to  receive  Holy  Communion.  Of 
course  I  know  it  doesn't  really  make  any  difference,  but 
still,  you  heard  my  confession,  and  I  would  far  rather  re- 
ceive Communion  this  first  time  from  you  than  from  any- 
one else.  I  don't  think  it  could  be  quite  the  same  thing 
— if  it  weren't  from  you." 

"  And  I  should  be  sorry  too,  my  child,  as  by  God's 
grace  I  have  been  the  means  of  bringing  you  thus  far, 
not  to  complete  your  reconciliation  to  him.  But  I  think 
we  can  manage  that  too  without  much  difficulty.  I  say 
Mass  to-morrow  at  nine  o'clock,  and  will  give  you  Com- 
munion then,  and  you  can  go  to  the  convent  for  your  re- 
treat early  in  the  afternoon.  Will  that  suit  you  ?  " 

And  Evelyn  could  not  find  words  to  express  her  grati- 
tude. 

That  evening  she  sat  with  her  father.  He  was  busy 
stringing  a  lute,  and  they  had  not  spoken  for  some  time; 
they  often  spent  quite  long  whiles  without  speaking,  and 
only  occasionally  they  raised  their  eyes  to  see  each  other. 
The  sensation  of  the  other's  presence  was  sufficient  for 
their  happiness. 


XXXIII. 

IT  being  Saturday,  there  was  choir  practice  nt  St.  Jo- 
seph's, and  when  Evelyn  returned  her  father  had  left,  and 
she  breakfasted  alone.  After  breakfast  she  sat  absorbed  in 
the  mysteries  of  the  Sacrament  she  had  received.  But  in 


EVELYN  INNES.  381 

the  middle  of  her  exaltation  doubt  intervened,  and  Owen's 
arguments  flashed  through  her  mind.  She  strove  to  banish 
them;  it  was  terrible  that  she  should  think  such  things 
over  again,  and  on  the  morning  of  her  Communion.  Her 
spiritual  joy  was  blighted;  she  could  only  hope  that  these 
dreadful  thoughts  were  temptations  of  the  devil,  and  that 
she  was  in  no  wise  responsible.  She  stood  in  the  middle 
of  the  room  asking  herself  if  she  had  not  in  some  slight 
measure  yielded  to  them.  No  direct  answer  came  to  her 
question,  but  the  words,  "  When  I'm  a  bad  woman  I  be- 
lieve, when  I'm  a  good  woman  I  doubt,"  sounded  clear  and 
distinct  in  her  brain,  and  she  remained  thinking  a  long 
while. 

Her  father  came  in  after  lunch.  And  while  he  spoke 
about  his  trebles  and  his  altos,  she  was  thinking  how  she 
should  tell  him  that  she  was  going  away  that  afternoon. 

"  You're  very  silent." 

"  I  was  at  Holy  Communion  this  morning." 

"  This  morning  ?  I  thought  you  were  going  to  Com- 
munion on  Sunday  ? " 

"  Yes,  so  I  was,  but  I  received  a  letter  from  Owen 
Asher  saying  he  intended  to  see  me.  I  took  it  to  Mon- 
signor;  he  said  it  was  necessary  that  I  should  not  see 
Owen,  and  he  advised  me  to  go  and  stay  with  the  Sisters 
at  Wimbledon.  That  is  why  I  went  to  Communion  this 
morning;  I  wanted  Monsignor  to  give  me  Communion. 
Father,  I  cannot  remain  here,  I  should  be  sure  to  meet 
him." 

"  He  will  not  come  here." 

"  No,  but  he'll  be  waiting  in  the  street." 

"  When  are  you  going  ?  " 

"  This  afternoon,"  she  answered,  and  handed  him 
Owen's  letter.  He  glanced  at  it,  and  said — 

"  He  seems  very  fond  of  you." 

The  answer  shocked  her,  and  nothing  more  was  said 
on  the  subject.  A  little  later  she  asked  him  about  the 
trains.  She  did  not  know  how  she  was  to  get  from  Dul- 
wich  to  Wimbledon.  Neither  were  very  apt  in  looking  out 
the  train,  and  eventually  it  was  Agnes  who  discovered  the 
changes  that  would  have  to  be  made.  She  would  have  to 
go  first  to  Victoria,  and  then  she  would  have  to  drive  from 
Victoria  to  Waterloo,  and  this  seemed  so  complicated  and 


382  EVELYN  INNES. 

roundabout  that  she  decided  to  drive  all  the  way  in  a  han- 
som. Dulwich  and  Wimbledon  could  not  be  more  than 
ten  miles  apart. 

"  I  must  go  upstairs  now,  father,  and  pack  my  things." 

Her  father  followed  her  and  stood  by,  while  she  hesi- 
tated what  she  should  take.  Smiling,  she  rejected  a  tea- 
gown  as  unsuitable  for  convent  wear,  and  put  in  a  black 
lace  scarf  which  she  thought  would  be  useful  for  wearing 
in  church;  it  would  look  better  in  the  convent  chapel  than 
a  hat.  Instead  of  a  flowered  silk  she  chose  a  grey  alpaca. 
Then  she  remembered  that  she  must  take  some  books  with 
her.  It  would  be  useless  to  bring  pious  books  with  her,  she 
would  find  plenty  of  those  in  the  convent. 

"  Have  you  any  books,  father  ?  I  must  have  something 
to  read." 

"  There  are  a  few  books  downstairs ;  you  know  them 
all." 

"You  don't  read  much,  father?" 

"  Not  much,  except  music.  But  Ulick  brings  books 
here,  you  may  find  something  among  them." 

She  returned  with  Berlioz's  Memoirs,  Pater's  Imaginary 
Conversations,  and  Blake's  Songs  of  Innocence  and  Ex- 
perience. 

"I  suppose  these  books  belong  to  Ulick.  I  don't  know 
if  I  ought  to  take  them." 

"  I  cannot  advise  you ;  you  must  do  as  you  like.  I  sup- 
pose you'll  bring  them  back  ? " 

"  Oh,  yes,  of  course  I  shall  bring  them  back." 

"  Evelyn,  dear,  is  it  quite  essential  that  you  should  go  ?  " 

"  Yes,  father,  yes,  it  is  quite ;  but  I  don't  know  how  I 
am  to  get  away." 

"  How  you're  to  get  away !    What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"Well,"  she  answered,  laughing,  "you  see  in  his  let  tor 
he  says  he's  coming  to  watch  me.  Father,  I  can  see  that 
you  pity  him ;  you're  sorry  for  him,  aren't  you  ? " 

"  Well,  Evelyn,  he  offered  to  marry  you,  he  made  you 
a  great  singer,  and  you  say  he'd  do  anything  for  you.  I 
suppose  I  am  sorry  for  him." 

They  stood  looking  out  of  the  window. 

"You  know  I'd  like  to  stop  with  you;  it  can't  be 
helped ;  but  I  shall  come  back." 

"  Do  you  think  you'll  come  back  ?  " 


EVELYN  INNES.  383 

"  Of  course  I  shall  come  back.  Where  should  I  go  if 
I  did  not  come  back?" 

At  that  moment  Agnes  drove  up  in  a  hansom;  she  ran 
up  the  little  garden,  and  carried  out  Evelyn's  bag  and 
placed  it  in  the  hansom. 

"I  must  go  now,  father;  good-bye,  darling.  I  sha'n't 
be  away  more  than  seven  or  eight  days." 

A  moment  after  her  dear  father  was  behind  her,  and  she 
was  alone  in  the  hansom,  driving  towards  the  convent. 
About  her  were  villas  engarlanded  with  reddening  creeper. 
On  one  lawn  a  family  had  assembled  under  the  shade  of  a 
dwarf  cedar,  and  miles  of  this  kind  of  landscape  lay  before 
her.  It  seemed  to  her  like  painted  paper,  something  that 
was  or  was  not :  it  did  not  matter  which.  Her  true  reality 
was  her  soul,  which  she  saw  fluttering,  a  sort  of  butterfly 
thing,  making  straight  for  an  end  which  she  could  not 
discern.  She  realised  with  singular  distinctness  the  strange- 
ness of  her  choice.  She  was  leaving  a  life  of  wealth  and 
fame  and  love  for  a  life  of  poverty,  chastity  and  obscurity. 
All  the  joy  and  emulation  of  the  stage  she  was  relinquish- 
ing for  a  dull,  narrow,  bare  life  at  Dulwich,  giving  sing- 
ing lessons  and  saying  prayers  at  St.  Joseph's.  Yet  there 
was  no  question  which  she  would  choose,  and  she  marvelled 
greatly.  Sometimes  the  road  lay  through  fields  and  past 
farmhouses,  but  the  suburban  street  was  never  quite  lost 
sight  of.  Its  blue  roofs  and  cheap  porticoes  appeared  un- 
expectedly at  the  end  of  an  otherwise  romantic  prospect. 
The  driver  let  his  horse  walk  up  the  Wimbledon  hill.  When 
they  reached  the  top  she  craned  her  neck,  and  was  in  time 
to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  windmill  far  away  to  the  right. 
The  inn  was  in  front  of  her,  the  end  of  a  long  point  of 
houses  stretching  into  the  common,  and  the  hansom  rolled 
easily  on  the  wide,  curving  roads.  She  anticipated  the 
choked  gardens,  the  decaying  pear  trees,  the  gold  crowns 
of  sunflowers;  and  a  moment  after  the  hansom  passed 
these  things  and  she  saw  the  old  green  door,  and  heard  the 
jangling  peal.  The  eyes  of  the  lay  sister  looked  through 
the  barred  loophole. 

"  How  do  you  do,  sister  ?  I  suppose  you  expected  me  ?  " 
The  cabman  put  the  trunk  inside  the  long  passage,  and 
Evelyn  said — 

"  But  my  luggage." 
25 


384  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  If  you'll  come  into  the  parlour  I'll  get  one  of  the  sis- 
ters to  help  me  to  carry  it  upstairs." 

Evelyn  was  sitting  at  the  table  turning  over  the  leaves 
of  The  Confessions  of  St.  Augustin,  when  the  Reverend 
Mother  entered.  She  seemed  to  Evelyn  even  smaller  than 
she  had  done  on  the  first  occasion  they  had  met;  she 
seemed  lost  in  the  voluminous  grey  habit,  and  the  long, 
light  veil  Honied  in  the  wind  of  her  quick  step. 

"  I'm  glad  you  were  able  to  come  so  soon.  All  the  sis- 
trrs  arc  anxious  to  meet  you,  you  who  have  done  so  much 
fur  us." 

"  I've  done  very  little,  Reverend  Mother.  Could  I  have 
dene  less  for  my  old  convent?  I  hope  that  your  difficulties 
are  at  an  end." 

"  At  an  end,  no,  but  you  helped  us  over  a  critical  mo- 
ment in  the  fortunes  of  our  convent." 

Her  hands  were  leaned  against  the  edge  of  the  table,  her 
white  fingers,  white  with  age,  played  with  the  hem  of  her 
veil,  her  blue,  anxious  eyes  were  fixed  on  Evelyn  at  once 
tenderly,  expectantly  and  compassionately.  Her  voice  was 
the  clear,  refined  voice  which  signifies  society,  and  Evelyn 
would  not  have  been  surprised  to  learn  that  she  belonged  to 
an  old  aristocratic  family.  In  this  second  conversation  she 
found  confirmation  of  her  first  impressions.  She  felt  quite 
sure  that  the  Reverend  Mother  had  once  lived  in  the  world; 
she  could  not  but  think  that  she  had  become  a  nun  late  in 
life.  But  whatever  her  story  might  have  been,  it  was 
buried  now  under  a  new  text,  so  the  Reverend  Mother 
seemed  to  Evelyn  like  what  she  might  herself  become,  a 
sort  of  palimpsest.  Evelyn  imagined  her  to  be  a  woman  in 
whom  the  genius  of  government  dominated,  and  who,  not 
having  found  an  outlet  into  the  world,  had  turned  to  the 
cloister.  Was  that  her  story?  Evelyn  wondered,  and  sud- 
denly seemed  to  foresee  a  day  when  she  would  hear  the 
story  which  shone  behind  those  clear  blue  eyes,  and  ob- 
literated age  from  the  white  face. 

They  went  up  the  circular  staircase,  at  the  top  of  which 
was  a  large  landing;  there  were  two  rooms  at  the  head  of 
the  stairs,  and  the  Reverend  Mother  said — 

"  These  are  our  guest  chambers."  Standing  on  a  second 
landing,  one  step  higher  than  the  first,  a  solid  wooden  par- 
tition had  been  erected,  and  pointing  to  a  door  the  nun 


EVELYN  INNES.  385 

said  with  a  laugh,  "That  door  leads  to  the  sisters'  cells. 
You  must  not  make  a  mistake." 

Evelyn  was  pleased  to  see  that  her  room  had  two  win- 
dows overlooking  the  garden.  There  was  a  table  covered 
by  a  cloth  at  which  she  could  write,  and  she  bent  over 
the  bowl  of  roses  and  wondered  which  kind  nun  had  gath- 
ered them.  The  Reverend  Mother  left  her,  saying  lhat  sho 
would  be  told  when  supper  was  ready,  and  on  looking  round 
the  room  she  perceived  her  portmanteau,  which  the  lay 
sister  had  not  unstrapped.  She  would  have  to  unstrap  it 
herself.  She  remembered  that  she  had  brought  very  few 
things  with  her,  and  was  surprised  at  the  smallness  of  her 
luggage.  For  she  usually  took  half-a-dozen  dresses  with 
her,  now  she  had  only  brought  one  change,  a  grey  alpaca. 
She  thought  she  might  have  left  her  dressing-case  behind, 
a  plain  brush  and  comb  would  have  been  all  she  needed. 
But  at  the  last  moment,  she  had  felt  that  she  could  not 
do  without  these  bottles  of  scent  and  brushes  and  nick- 
nacks;  they  had  seemed  indispensable.  The  dressing-case 
was  Owen's  influence  still  pursuing  her.  She  had  not 
known  why  she  was  compelled  to  bring  the  dressing-case, 
now  she  knew — Owen !  Never  would  she  be  able  to  wholly 
separate  herself  from  him.  He  had  become  part  of  her. 

As  she  stood  in  the  convent  room  noticing  the  bees- 
waxed floor  and  the  two  rugs,  one  by  the  small  iron  bed, 
she  remembered  one  hunting  morning  three  years  ago  at 
Kiversdale.  She  had  gone  to  Owen's  room  to  see  if  he  were 
ready.  A  multitude  of  orders  were  being  given  there,  thn 
valet  was  searching  anxiously  in  the  large  wardrobe,  piled 
high  with  many  various  coats  and  trousers;  Owen  stood 
before  the  looking-glass  tying  a  white  scarf,  and  two  foot- 
men watched  each  movement,  dreading  a  mistake.  She 
remembered  that  she  had  been  amused  at  the  time,  and 
she  never  recalled  the  scene  without  smiling.  But  she  had 
liked  Owen  better  for  the  innumerable  superfluities,  all  of 
which  were  necessary  to  his  happiness,  the  breakdown  of 
any  one  of  which  made  him  the  most  miserable  man  alive. 
She  remembered  how  she  had  secretly  imitated  him,  and 
how  she  had  gathered  about  her  a  mass  of  superfluous  neces- 
sities. But  they  had  never  become  necessities  to  her,  they 
had  always  galled  her.  It  was  in  a  spirit  of  perversity  she 
had  imitated  him.  She  had  always  felt  it  to  be  wrong  to 


386  EVELYN  INNES. 

eat  peaches  at  five  francs  a  piece,  and  had  always  been 
aware  of  an  inward  resentment  against  the  extravagance 
of  a  reserved  carriage  on  the  railway  and  private  saloon  on 
hoard  the  boat.  She  had  always  desired  a  simple  life;  the 
life  of  these  nuns  was  a  simple  life,  simpler  perhaps  than 
she  cared  for.  There  was  no  hot  water  in  her  room,  she 
wondered  how  she  would  wash  her  hands,  and  smiling  at 
her  philosophical  reflections,  she  thought  how  Owen  would 
laugh  if  he  could  see  her  in  her  present  situation — in  a  con- 
vent, crying  out  for  a  constant  supply  of  hot  water  and  her 
maid.  A  religious  life  with  home  comforts,  that  was  what 
she  wanted. 

She  was  always  a  subject  of  amusement  to  herself,  and 
she  was  still  smiling  when  a  knock  awoke  her  from  her 
whimsical  reveries.  She  answered  "  Come  in,"  and  an 
elderly  nun  told  her  that  supper  was  ready  in  the  parlour. 
In  this  room,  furnished  with  a  table  and  six  chairs  and 
four  pious  prints,  Evelyn  ate  her  convent  meal,  a  sort  of 
mixed  meal,  which  included  soup,  cold  meat,  coffee,  jam 
and  some  unripe  pears.  The  portress  took  the  plates  away, 
and  somehow  Evelyn  could  not  help  feeling  that  she  was 
giving  a  good  deal  of  trouble.  She  could  see  that  the  nuns 
did  everything  for  themselves,  and  she  abandoned  hope  of 
ever  finding  a  can  of  hot  water  in  her  room.  She  remem- 
bered that  when  she  made  her  retreat  some  years  ago,  she 
had  not  noticed  these  things.  She  owed  all  her  wants  to 
Owen.  Mother  Philippa  came  in,  delighted  to  see  her, 
and  anxious  to  know  if  she  had  everything  she  wanted. 

"  I  thought  you  would  be  sure  to  be  going  abroad,  and 
that  next  Easter,  the  time  you  were  here  before,  would  bo 
the  time  to  ask  you." 

"  But  the  Reverend  Mother  thought  that  now  would 
be  a  better  time." 

"  Yes,  she  said  that  Easter  was  a  long  way  off,  and  that 
a  rest  would  do  you  good  after  singing  all  the  season  in 
London." 

"  It  is  as  I  suspected,"  Evelyn  thought.  "  The  Reverend 
Mother  has  known  the  world.  She  must  have  guessed  my 
story.  That  is  why  she  wrote."  Then,  perceiving  that 
Mother  Philippa  was  waiting  for  her  to  speak,  she  said 
that  it  was  a  happy  thought  of  the  Reverend  Mother  to 
write  to  Monsignor.  She  added  that  she  had  sung  a  great 


EVELYN  INNES.  387 

many  times  this  year,  and  that  the  operas  she  sang  were 
very  exhausting. 

Evelyn  wondered  what  idea  the  phrase  "  the  operas  I 
sing  are  very  exhausting  "  would  awake  in  the  mind  of  the 
nun.  A  little  puzzled  look  passed  in  her  eyes,  and  then 
she  resumed  her  friendly  chatter.  Evelyn  listened,  more 
interested  in  Mother  Bernard's  kind,  amicable  nature  than 
in  what  she  said.  She  imagined  in  different  circumstances 
what  a  good  wife  she  would  have  been,  and  what  a  good 
mother !  "  But  she  is  happier  as  she  is."  Evelyn  could  not 
imagine  any  soul-rending  uncertainties  in  Mother  Philip- 
pa.  At  a  certain  age,  at  seventeen  or  eighteen,  she  had  felt 
that  she  would  like  to  be  a  nun;  very  probably  she  was 
not  any  more  pious  than  her  sisters;  she  had  merely  felt 
that  the  life  would  suit  her.  That  was  her  story.  Evelyn 
smiled,  and  looked  into  Mother  Bernard's  mild  eyes,  in 
which  there  was  nothing  but  simple  kindness,  and  with  a 
yes  and  a  no  she  kept  the  conversation  going  till  the  bell 
rang  for  Office. 

"  I  do  not  know  if  you  would  care  to  come  to  church. 
Perhaps  you  are  tired  after  your  journey?" 

"  Journey !     I  have  only  driven  a  few  miles." 

Evelyn  ran  upstairs  for  her  hat.  She  followed  the  nun 
down  the  cloister  which  led  to  the  church. 

"  That  is  your  door,  it  will  take  you  into  the  outer 
church."  The  nuns'  choir  was  still  empty,  but  the  two 
candles  on  the  high  altar  were  already  lit,  ready  for  Matins 
and  Lauds. 

At  that  moment  a  door  opened  on  the  other  side  of  the 
grille,  and  the  grey  figures,  their  heads  a  little  bent,  came 
in  couples  and  took  their  place  in  the  stalls.  They  wen; 
wonderfully  beautiful  and  impressive,  and  the  idea  they 
represented  seemed  to  Evelyn  extraordinary,  simple  and 
true.  For,  once  we  are  convinced  that  there  is  a  God,  and 
that  we  are  here  to  save  our  souls,  it  were  surely  folly  in 
the  extreme  to  think  of  anything  except  him.  Our  loves 
and  our  ambitions,  what  are  they  when  we  consider  him, 
and  Evelyn  remembered  how  he  waits  for  us  in  an  eternity 
of  bliss  and  love,  only  asking  for  our  love.  These  were  the 
wise  ones,  they  thought  of  the  essential  and  let  the  ephem- 
eral and  circumstantial  go  by  them.  Even  from  a  world- 
ly point  of  view,  their  life  was  the  wiser,  since  it  produced 


388  EVELYN  INNES. 

the  greater  happiness.  Owen  was  a  proof  of  this.  She 
remembered  how  he  used  to  say  how  he  had  the  finest 
place,  the  most  beautiful  pictures,  and  the  most  desirable 
mistress  in  Europe.  Yet  he  was  always  the  unhappiest  man 
she  knew.  His  life  had  been  an  unceasing  effort  to  capture 
happiness,  and  he  had  failed  because  he  had  sought  hap- 
piness from  without  instead  of  seeking  it  from  within. 
He  lived  in  externals,  he  was  dependent  on  a  multitude  of 
things,  the  breakdown  of  any  one  of  which  was  sufficient 
to  cause  him  the  acutest  misery.  The  howl  of  a  dog,  the 
smell  of  a  cigar,  any  trifle  was  sufficient  to  wreck  his  hap- 
piness. He  had  taught  her  to  live  in  external  things,  to 
place  her  faith  in  the  world  instead  of  in  her  own  con- 
science. How  unhappy  she  had  been;  she  had  been  driven 
to  the  brink  of  suicide.  Ah,  if  it  had  not  been  for  Mon- 
signor.  She  bent  her  face  on  her  hands,  and  did  not  dare 
to  think  further. 

When  her  prayer  was  finished,  she  listened  to  the  high 
monotonous  chant  of  the  nuns  reciting  Matins.  It  sank 
into  her  soul,  soothing  it,  and  at  the  same  time  inspiring  an 
ardent  melancholy.  The  long,  unbroken  rhythm  flowed  ou 
and  on,  each  side  of  the  choir  chanting  an  alternate  verse. 
In  the  dimness  of  her  sensation,  Evelyn  lost  count  of  time, 
nor  did  she  know  of  what  she  was  thinking.  She  was 
suddenly  awakened  by  a  sound  of  shuffling.  The  nuns  had 
risen  to  their  feet,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  floor  a  sifter 
began  the  lessons  in  a  shrill  voice,  keeping  always  on  the 
same  note,  never  lifting  her  voice  at  the  close  of  the  sen- 
tences. Evelyn  grew  more  interested;  the  rite  was  full  of 
a  penetrating  mystery.  She  viewed  the  lines  of  grey  nuns 
and  heard  the  Latin  syllables.  A  long  week  lay  before 
her;  some  of  that  time  she  might  spend  in  learning  a  little 
Latin.  She  was  ashamed  of  her  ignorance;  the<e  poor 
nuns  whom  she  was  just  now  pitying  for  their  ignorance  of 
life  could  at  all  events  read  the  Office  in  Latin. 


EVELYN  INNES.  389 


XXXIV. 

WHEN  she  opened  her  eyes  and  saw  the  convent  room, 
she  remembered  how  she  had  come  there.  Her  still  dream- 
ing face  lighted  up  with  a  smile,  and  she  began  to  wonder 
what  was  going  to  happen  next.  Soon  after,  someone 
knocked.  It  was  the  little  portress  telling  her  that  it  was 
seven  o'clock.  Evelyn  expected  her  to  come  in,  pull  up  the 
blinds  and  pour  out  her  bath.  But  she  did  not  even  open 
the  door,  and  Evelyn  lay  looking  through  the  strange  room, 
unable  to  face  the  discomfort  of  a  small  basin  of  cold  water. 
IShe  would  have  to  do  her  hair  herself,  and  there  was  no 
toilette  table.  The  convent  seemed  suddenly  a  place  to 
flee  from ;  she  hadn't  realised  that  it  would  be  like  this. 
.  .  .  But  it  would  never  do  for  her  to  miss  Mass,  and  she 
sat  on  the  edge  of  the  bed,  unable  to  think  of  any  solution 
of  her  difficulties.  The  only  glass  in  the  room  was  about 
a  foot  square;  it  had  been  placed  on  the  chest  of  drawers, 
and  nothing  seemed  to  Evelyn  more  inefficient  than  this 
wretched  glass.  Its  very  position  on  the  top  of  the  chest 
of  drawers  was  vexatious.  She  could  not  even  get  it  into 
ihe  proper  angle,  and  when  she  removed  the  piece  of  paper 
that  held  it  in  position,  it  swung  round  and  its  back  con- 
fronted her.  That  morning  it  seemed  as  if  she  could  not 
dress  herself.  Her  hair  had  curled  itself  into  many  a  knot; 
she  nearly  broke  the  comb,  and  her  hand  dropped  by  her 
side,  and  then  she  laughed  outright,  having  caught  sight 
of  some  part  of  her  dejection.  As  she  hooked  on  her  skirt 
she  reflected  on  the  necessity  of  not  leaving  bottles  of  scent 
nor  too  many  sponges  for  the  observation  of  the  nuns;  and 
the  nightgown  she  had  brought  was  certainly  not  a  con- 
ventual garment. 

She  hurried  downstairs,  and  was  just  in  time  to  see  the 
nuns  coming  into  church.  They  came  in  by  a  side  door, 
walking  two  by  two,  and  Evelyn  was  again  struck  by  the 
beauty  and  mystery  of  this  grey  procession.  She  had 
seen  on  the  stage  the  outward  show  of  men  who  had  re- 
nounced the  world — the  pilgrims  in  "  Tannhiiuser,"  the 
knights  in  "  Parsifal,"  but  this  was  no  outward  show.  The 
women  she  was  now  witnessing  had  renounced  the  world ; 


390  EVELYN  INNES. 

the  life  she  was  witnessing  was  the  life  they  lived  from 
hour  to  hour,  from  day  to  day,  from  year  to  year.  She  had 
included  lovers  amid  their  renunciations;  such  inclusion 
was  ridiculous,  for  of  such  sins  as  hers  they  had  not  even 
dreamed.  To  pass  through  life  without  knowing  life!  To 
have  renounced,  to  have  refused  life,  lovers,  friends,  am- 
bitions, fame,  art,  everything,  dinner-parties,  conversations, 
all  the  distractions  which  we  believe  make  life  endurable, 
but  to  have  refused  these  things  from  the  beginning;  not 
even  to  have  been  tempted  to  taste,  not  even  to  have  desired 
to  put  life  to  the  test  of  a  fugitive  personal  experience,  to 
have  divined  from  the  first  by  instinct,  by  the  grace  of  God, 
the  worthlessness  of  life,  that  was  what  was  so  wonderful. 
.Mother  Philippa,  that  simple  nun,  had  done  this,  instinct 
had  told  her — there  was  no  other  explanation.  She  had 
arrived  at  the  same  conclusion  as  the  wisest  of  the  philoso- 
phers and  without  any  soul-searching  by  instinct — each  of 
the  humble  lay  sisters,  the  little  portress  had  done  this. 
Her  life  was  a  distant  sound,  a  vague  hum,  an  echo  which 
hardly  reached  their  ears,  the  significance  of  which  they 
did  not  comprehend.  They  lived  here,  absorbed  in  their 
dream  of  God,  and  Evelyn  was  filled  with  shame  when  sho 
thought  of  the  effort  it  had  cost  her  to  free  herself  from  a 
life  of  sin. 

In  extraordinary  beauty  of  grey  habit  and  veil  and 
solemn  procession,  the  nuns  passed  to  their  seats.  Wow 
they  were  kneeling  altarwise,  and  Evelyn  was  still  occupied 
by  the  thought  that  this  was  not  outward  show  as  she  had 
often  seen  it  on  the  stage,  but  the  thing  itself.  This  \\as 
not  acting,  this  was  truth,  the  truth  of  all  their  lifetimes. 

Suddenly  began  the  plaint  of  the  organ,  and  some  half- 
dozen  voices  sang  a  hymn;  and  these  pale,  etiolated  voices 
interested  her.  It  was  not  the  clear,  sexless  voices  of  boy. , 
but  their  women's  voices,  out  of  which  sex  had  faded  like 
colour  out  of  flowers;  and  these  pale,  deciduous  voices  wail- 
ing a  poor,  pathetic  music,  so  weak  and  feeble  that  it  was 
almost  interesting  through  its  very  feebleness,  interested 
Evelyn.  Tears  trembled  in  her  eyes,  and  she  listened  to 
the  poor  voices  rising  and  falling,  breaking  forth  spasmod- 
ically in  the  lamentable  hymn.  "  Desolate "  and  "  for- 
gotien"  were  the  words  that  came  up  in  her  mind,  and  they 
were  forgotten  like  the  wind  that  moans.  She  heard  them 


EVELYN  INNES.  391 

no  more,  growing  deaf  in  contemplation  of  the  nuns.  They 
Avere  still  kneeling  altarwise ;  their  profiles  turned  from  her. 
Outside  of  the  choir  stalls,  on  either  side  of  the  church, 
were  two  special  stalls,  and  the  Reverend  Mother  and  the 
sub-prioress  knelt  apart.  Their  backs  were  turned  to  Eve- 
lyn, and  she  noticed  the  fine  delicate  shoulders  of  the  Rev- 
erend Mother,  and  the  heavy  figure  of  Mother  Bernard. 
"  Even  in  their  backs  they  are  like  themselves,"  she  thought. 
She  smiled  at  her  descriptive  style,  "  like  themselves,"  and 
then,  seeing  that  Mass  had  begun,  she  resolutely  repressed 
all  levity,  and  she  began  her  prayers.  She  had  not  felt 
especially  pious  till  that  moment,  and  to  rouse  herself  she 
remembered  Monsignor's  words,  "  That  at  the  height  of  her 
artistic  career  she  should  have  been  awakened  to  a  sense  of 
her  own  exceeding  sinfulness  was  a  miracle  of  his  grace," 
and  she  felt  that  the  devotion  of  her  whole  life  to  his  serv- 
ice would  not  be  a  sufficient  return  for  what  he  had  done 
for  her.  She  did  not  dare  to  raise  her  eyes  and  look  upon 
his  face.  He  hung  on  his  cross  dying  for  her,  and  at  the 
thought  that  at  least  in  her  instance  he  had  not  died  in 
vain,  she  was  filled  with  a  great  joy;  it  was  like  the  break- 
ing of  silver  light  about  her,  and  it  seemed  to  fall  upon  her 
soft  as  dew,  and  she  was  lost  as  in  a  perfume.  So  intense 
was  the  rapture,  that  she  feared  it  would  pass  too  soon; 
she  sought  by  prayer  to  prolong  the  rapture.  But  in  spite 
of  her  efforts  it  died  down  within  her  like  lights  dwindling 
in  the  far  distance.  Slowly  she  returned  to  earth,  and  in 
devout  collectedness,  but  in  her  normal  consciousness,  she 
followed  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass.  The  bell  rang  for  the 
Klcvation,  and  when  the  priest  raised  the  Host  she  was 
conscious  of  the  Real  Presence.  She  raised  her  eyes  a 
little.  The  music  of  these  poor  voices  was  more  favour- 
able in  God's  ears  than  her  voice.  Months  she  had  spent 
seeking  the  exact  rhythm  of  a  phrase  intended  to  de- 
pict and  to  rouse  a  sinful  desire.  Though  the  hymns 
were  ugly — and  they  were  very  ugly — she  would  have 
done  better  to  sing  them;  and  she  sought  to  press  her- 
self into  the  admission  that  art  which  does  not  tend  to  the 
glory  of  God  is  vain  and  harmful.  Far  better  these  hide- 
ous hymns,  if  singing  them  conducts  to  everlasting  life. 
But  every  time  she  pressed  her  mind  towards  an  inevitable 
conclusion,  it  turned  off  into  an  obscure  bypath.  She 


392  EVELYN  1NNES. 

brought  it  back  like  an  intractable  ass,  but  the  stubborn 
beast  again  dodged  her,  and  she  had  to  abandon  the  attempt 
to  convince  herself  that  art  which  did  not  tend  to  the  hon- 
our and  glory  of  God  should  be  suppressed — should  be  at 
least  avoided.  Once  we  were  convinced  that  there  was  a 
God  and  a  resurrection,  this  world  must  become  as  nothing 
in  our  eyes,  only  it  didn't  become  as  nothing  in  our  eyes; 
every  sacrifice  should  become  easy,  but  every  sacrifice  didn't 
become  easy.  That  was  the  point;  to  these  nuns,  perhaps, 
not  to  her.  At  least  not  yet. 

She  had  fussed  a  great  deal  this  morning  because  she 
had  no  hot  water  to  wash  with.  Seven  o'clock  had  seemed 
to  her  somewhat  early  to  get  up.  But  they  had  been  up 
long  before.  She  had  heard  of  nuns  who  got  up  at  four  in 
the  morning  to  say  the  Office.  She  did  not  know  what  time 
these  nuns  got  up,  but  she  felt  that  she  was  not  capable  of 
much  greater  sacrifice  than  six  or  seven  o'clock.  These 
nuns  lived  on  a  little  coarse  food,  and  spent  the  day  in 
prayer.  She  thought  of  their  aching  knees  in  the  long  vig- 
ils of  their  adorations.  She  understood  that  the  inward 
happiness  their  life  gives  them  compensates  them  for  all 
their  privations.  She  understood  that  they  are  the  only 
ones  who  are  happy,  yet  the  knowledge  did  not  help  her; 
she  felt  that  she  would  never  be  happy  in  their  happiness, 
and  a  great  sorrow  came  over  her.  Mass  was  over,  and 
again  the  beautiful  procession,  with  bowed  heads  and  meek- 
ly folded  veils,  glided  out  of  the  church.  Only  the  watch- 
ers remained. 

Last  night  she  had  sat  watching  the  stars  shining  on  the 
convent  gardens.  There  were,  as  Owen  said,  twenty  mil- 
lions of  suns  in  the  Milky  Way;  beyond  the  Milky  Way 
there  were  other  constellations  of  which  we  know  nothing, 
nebiilin  which  time  has  not  yet  resolved  into  stars,  or  stars 
BO  distant  that  time  has  not  yet  brought  their  light  hither. 
Hut  why  seek  mystery  beyond  this  poor  planet?  It  fur- 
nishes enough,  surely.  That  we  should  sec  the  stars,  that 
we  should  know  the  stars,  that  we  should  place  God  above 
the  stars — are  not  these  common  facts  as  wonderful  as  the 
stars  themselves?  That  those  twenty  or  five-and-twenty 
women  should  give  up  all  the  seduction  of  life  for  the  sake 
of  an  idea,  accepting  Owen's  theory  that  it  is  but  an  idea, 
even  so  the  wonder  of  it  is  not  less;  even  from  Owen's 


EVELYN  INNES.  393 

point  of  view  is  not  this  convent  as  wonderful  as  the 
stars  ? 

On  coming1  out  of  church,  she  was  told  that  in  half-an- 
hour  her  breakfast  would  be  ready  in  the  parlour,  and  to 
loosen  the  mental  tension — she  had  thought  and  felt  a 
great  deal  in  the  last  hour — she  asked  the  lay  sister  who 
were  the  nuns  who  sang  in  the  choir.  The  lay  sister  an- 
swered her  perfunctorily.  Evelyn  could  see  that  she  was 
not  open  at  that  moment  to  conversation.  She  guessed  that 
the  sister  had  work  to  attend  to,  and  was  not  surprised  that 
she  did  not  come  back  to  take  the  things  away.  Although 
only  just  begun,  the  day  had  already  begun  to  seem  long. 
She  proposed  to  herself  some  pious  reading;  and  wondered 
how  she  was  going  to  get  through  the  day.  She  would 
have  liked  to  go  into  the  garden;  but  she  did  not  know  the 
rules  of  the  convent,  and  feared  to  transgress  them.  How- 
ever, she  was  free  to  go  to  her  room.  The  books  she  had 
brought  with  her  would  help  her  to  get  through  the  morn- 
ing. 

Berlioz's  Memoirs!  The  faded  voices  she  had  heard 
that  morning  singing  dreary  hymns  were  more  wonderful 
than  his  orchestral  dreams.  Nor  did  she  find  the  spiritual 
stimulus  she  needed  in  Pater's  Imaginary  Portraits.  Some 
moody  souls  reflecting  with  no  undue  haste,  without  undue 
desire  to  arrive  at  any  definite  opinion  concerning  certain 
artistic  problems,  did  not  appeal  to  her.  She  put  the  book 
aside,  fearing  that  she  was  in  no  humour  for  reading  that 
morning;  and  with  little  hope  of  being  interested,  she  took 
up  another  book.  The  size  of  the  volume  and  the  dispro- 
portion of  the  type  seemed  to  drag  her  to  it,  and  the  title 
was  a  sort  of  prophetic  echo  of  the  interest  she  was  to  find 
in  the  book.  Her  thoughts  clouded  in  a  sense  of  delight 
as  she  read;  she  followed  as  a  child  follows  a  butterfly, 
until  the  fluttering  colour  disappears  in  the  sky.  And  be- 
fore she  was  aware  of  any  idea,  the  harmony  of  the  gentle 
prose  captivated  her,  and  she  sat  down,  holding  in  her  heart 
the  certitude  that  she  was  going  to  be  enchanted.  The  book 
procured  for  her  the  delicious  sensualism  of  reading  things 
at  once  new  and  old.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she  was  reading 
things  that  she  had  known  always,  but  which  she  had  some- 
how neglected  to  think  out  for  herself.  The  book  seemed 
like  her  inner  self  suddenly  made  clear.  All  that  the 


394  EVELYN  INNES. 

author  said  on  the  value  of  Silence  was  so  true.  She  raised 
her  eyes  from  the  page  to  think.  She  seemed  to  understand 
something,  but  she  could  not  tell  what  it  was.  The  object 
of  every  soul  is  to  unite  itself  to  another  soul,  to  be  ab- 
sorbed in  another,  to  find  life  and  happiness  in  another; 
the  desire  of  unison  is  the  deepest  instinct  in  man.  But 
how  little,  the  author  asked,  do  words  help  us  to  under- 
stand? We  talk  and  talk,  and  nothing  is  really  said;  the 
conversation  falls,  we  walk  side  by  side,  our  eyes  fixed 
on  the  quiet  skies,  and  lo !  our  souls  come  together  and  are 
united  in  their  immortal  destiny.  She  again  raised  her 
eyes  from  the  page — now  she  understood,  and  she  thought 
a  long  while.  The  chapter  entitled  "  The  Profound  Life  " 
interested  her  equally.  The  nuns  realised  it,  but  those  who 
live  in  the  world  live  on  the  surface  of  things.  To  live  a 
life  of  silence  and  devotion,  illumined  not  from  without 
but  from  within,  the  eternal  light  that  never  fails  or  with- 
ers, and  to  live  unconscious  of  the  great  stream  of  things, 
our  back  turned  to  that  great  stream  flowing  mysteriously, 
solemnly,  like  a  river!  The  chapter  entitled  "Warnings" 
had  for  her  a  strangely  personal  meaning.  How  true  it  is 
that  we  know  everything,  only  we  have  not  acquired  the  art 
of  saying  it.  Had  she  not  always  known  that  her  destiny 
was  not  with  Owen,  that  he  was  but  a  passing,  not  the  abid- 
ing event  of  her  life?  She  looked  through  the  convent 
room,  and  the  abiding  event  of  her  life  now  seemed  to  mur- 
mur in  her  ear,  seemed  to  pass  like  a  shadow  before  her 
eyes.  At  the  moment  when  she  thought  she  was  about  tu 
hear  and  see,  a  knock  came  at  her  door,  and  the  revelat  ion 
of  her  destiny  passed,  with  a  little  ironical  smile,  out  of  her 
eyes  and  ears. 

Her  visitor  was  a  strange  little  nun  whom  she  had  not 
seen  before.  Over  her  slim  figure  the  white  serge  habit 
fell  in  such  graceful,  mediaeval  lines  as  Evelyn  had  seen  in 
German  cathedrals;  and  her  face  was  delicate  and  child- 
like beneath  the  white  forehead  band.  She  came  forward 
with  a  diffident  little  smile. 

"  Reverend  Mother  sent  me  to  you ;  she  is  watching 
now,  or  she  would  have  come  herself,  but  she  thought  you 
might  like  me  to  take  you  round  the  garden.  She  will 
join  us  there  when  she  comes  out  of  chureh.  But  lieven-nd 
Mother  said  you  must  do  just  as  you  liked." 


EVELYN  INNES.  395 

The  little  nun  corresponded  to  her  mood  even  as  tho 
book  had  done;  she  seemed  an  apparition,  a  ghost  risen 
from  its  pages.  Her  face  was  a  thin  oval,  and  the  purity 
of  the  outline  was  accentuated  by  the  white  kerchief  which 
surrounded  it.  The  nose  was  slightly  aquiline,  the  chin  a 
little  pointed,  the  lips  well  cut,  but  thin  and  colourless — 
lips  that  Evelyn  thought  had  never  been  kissed,  and  that 
never  would  be  kissed.  The  thought  seemed  disgraceful, 
and  Evelyn  noticed  hastily  the  dark  almond  eyes  that 
saved  the  face  from  insipidity;  the  firm  black  eyebrows 
were  firmly  and  delicately  drawn,  her  complexion,  without 
being  pale,  was  extraordinarily  transparent,  and  the  thin 
hands  and  long,  narrow  fingers,  half  hidden  beneath  the 
long  sleeves,  were  in  the  same  idea  of  media?val  delicacy. 

"  I  was  longing  to  go  out,  but  I  had  not  the  courage. 
I  feared  it  might  be  against  the  rule  for  me  to  go  into  the 
garden  alone.  But  tell  me  first  who  you  are." 

"  Oh,  I'm  Sister  Veronica.  I'm  only  a  novice  as 
yet." 

Evelyn  noticed  that,  unlike  the  other  nuns  she  had  seen, 
Sister  Veronica  wore  neither  the  silver  heart  on  her  breast, 
suspended  by  a  red  cord,  nor  the  long  straight  scapular 
which  gave  such  dignity  to  the  religious  habit.  Her  habit 
was  held  in  at  the  waist  by  a  leather  girdle;  it  looked  as 
though  it  might  slip  any  moment  over  the  slight,  boyish 
hips,  and  by  her  side  hung  a  rosary  of  large  black  beads. 

Sister  Veronica  warned  Evelyn  that  she  must  be  care- 
ful how  she  went  down  the  staircase,  as  it  was  very  slip- 
pery. Evelyn  said  she  would  be  careful;  she  added  that 
the  sisters  kept  the  stairs  in  beautiful  order,  and  wondered 
what  her  next  remark  would  be.  She  was  nervous  in  the 
presence  of  these  convent  women,  lest  by  some  unfortunate 
remark  she  should  betray  herself.  And  when  they  reached 
the  garden  it  was  Sister  Veronica  who  was  the  most  self- 
possessed — she  was  already  confessing  to  Evelyn  that  they 
had  all  felt  very  nervous  knowing  that  a  "  real "  singer  was 
listening  to  them. 

"  Oh,  do  you  sing  ?  "  Evelyn  asked  eagerly. 

"  Well,  I  have  to  try,"  Sister  Veronica  answered,  with  a 
little  laugh.  "  Mother  Prioress  thought  perhaps  I  might 
learn,  so  she  put  me  in  the  choir,  but  Sister  Mary  John 
says  I  shall  never  be  the  least  use." 


396  EVELYN  INNES. 

"Is  Sister  Mary  John  the  sister  who  teaches  you?" 

"  Yes ;  it  is  she  who  played  the  organ  at  Mass.  She 
loves  music.  She  is  simply  longing  to  hear  you  sing,  Miss 
Innes.  Do  you  think  you  will  sing  at  Benediction  this 
afternoon  for  us?  It  would  be  lovely." 

"  I  don't  know,  really.  You  see  I  haven't  been  asked 
yet." 

"  Oh,  Reverend  Mother  is  sure  to  ask  you — at  least  I 
hope  she  will.  We  all  want  to  hear  you  so  much." 

They  were  sitting  in  the  shadow  of  a  great  elm;  all 
around  was  a  wonderful  silence,  and  to  turn  the  conversa- 
tion from  herself,  Evelyn  asked  Sister  Veronica  if  sho 
didn't  care  for  their  beautiful  garden. 

"  Oh,  yes,  indeed  I  do.  I'm  glad  you  like  it.  ...  When 
I  was  a  child  my  greatest  treat  was  to  be  allowed  to  play 
in  the  nuns'  garden." 

"  Then  you  knew  the  convent  long  before  you  came  to 
be  a  nun  yourself?" 

"  Oh,  yes,  I've  known  it  all  my  life." 

"  So  it  was  not  strange  when  you  came  here  first? " 

"  No,  it  was  like  coming  home." 

Evelyn  repeated  the  nun's  words  to  herself,  "  Like  com- 
ing home."  And  she  seemed  to  see  far  into  their  meaning. 
Here  was  an  illustration  of  what  she  had  read  in  the  book 
— she  and  Veronica  seemed  to  understand  each  other  in 
the  silence.  But  it  became  necessary  to  speak,  and  in  an- 
swer to  a  question,  Sister  Veronica  told  Evelyn  that  there 
were  four  novices  and  two  postulants  in  the  novitiate,  and 
that  the  name  of  the  novice  mistress  was  Mother  Mary 
Hilda.  The  novitiate  was  in  the  upper  storey  of  the  new 
wing,  above  the  convent  refectory. 

"  And  here  is  Reverend  Mother,"  and  Sister  Veronica 
suddenly  got  up.  Evelyn  got  up  too,  and  they  waited  till 
the  elderly  nun  slowly  crossed  the  lawn.  Evelyn  noticed, 
even  when  the  Reverend  Mother  was  seated,  that  Veronica 
remained  standing. 

"  You  can  go  now,  Veronica." 

Veronica  smiled  a  little  good-bye  to  Evelyn,  and  left 
them  immediately. 

"  Veronica  told  you,  Miss  Innes,  I  was  taking  my 
watch  ? " 

"  Yes,  Reverend  Mother." 


EVELYN  INNES.  397 

"  I  hope  she  has  not  been  wearying  you  with  the  details 
of  our  life  ?  " 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  have  been  very  much  interested. 
.  .  .  Your  life  here  is  so  beautiful  that  I  long  to  know 
more  about  it.  At  present  my  knowledge  is  confined  to  the 
fact  that  the  second  storey  in  the  new  wing  is  the  novitiate, 
and  that  there  are  four  novices  and  two  postulants."  The 
Keverend  Mother  smiled,  and  after  a  pause  Evelyn  added — 

"  But  Sister  Veronica  is  very  young." 

"  She  is  older  than  she  looks,  she  is  nearly  twenty.  Ever 
since  she  was  quite  a  child  she  wished  to  be  a  nun.  Even 
then  her  mind  was  quite  made  up." 

"  She  told  me  that  when  she  was  a  child  her  great  pleas- 
ure was  to  be  allowed  to  walk  in  the  convent  garden." 

"  Yos.  You  don't  know,  perhaps,  that  sho  is  my  niece. 
My  poor  brother's  child.  She  was  left  an  orphan  at  a  very 
early  age.  Hers  is  a  sad  story.  But  God  has  been  good : 
she  never  doubted  her  vocation,  she  passed  from  an  inno- 
cent childhood  to  a  life  dedicated  to  God.  So  she  has  been 
spared  the  trouble  that  is  the  lot  of  those  who  live  in  the 
world." 

An  accent  of  past  but  unforgotten  sorrow  had  crept 
into  her  voice;  and  once  more  Evelyn  was  convinced  that 
she  had  not,  like  Veronica,  passed  from  innocent  child- 
hood into  the  blameless  dream  of  convent  life.  She  had 
known  the  world  and  had  renounced  it.  In  the  silence  that 
had  fallen  Evelyn  wondered  what  her  story  might  be,  and 
whether  she  would  ever  hear  it.  But  she  knew  that  in  the 
convent  no  allusion  is  made  to  the  past,  that  there  the  past 
is  really  the  past. 

"  I  hope  that  you  will  sing  for  us  at  Benediction.  All 
the  sisters  are  longing  to  hear  you.  It  will  be  such  a 
pleasure  to  them." 

"  I  shall  be  very  glad  .  .  .  only  I  have  brought  nothing 
with  me.  But  I  daresay  I  shall  find  something  among  the 
music  you  have  here." 

"  Sister  Mary  John  will  find  you  something;  she  is  our 
organist." 

"  And  an  excellent  musician.     I  noticed  her  playing." 

"  She  had  always  been  anxious  to  improve  the  choir,  but 
unfortunately  none  of  the  sisters  exempt  her  has  any  voi™ 
to  speak  of.  ...  You  might  sing  Gounod's  '  Ave  Maria' 


398  EVELYN  INNES. 

at  Benediction;  you  know,  of  course,  what  a  beautiful 
piece  of  music  it  is.  But  I  see  that  you  don't  admire  it." 

"  Well,"  Evelyn  said,  smiling,  "  it  is  contrary  to  all  the 
principles  I've  been  brought  up  in." 

"  We  might  walk  a  little ;  we  are  at  the  end  of  the 
summer,  and  the  air  is  a  little  cold.  You  do  not  mind 
walking  very  slowly?  I'm  forbidden  to  walk  fast  on  ac- 
count of  my  heart." 

They  crossed  the  sloping  lawn,  and  walking  slowly  up 
St.  Peter's  walk,  amid  sad  flutterings  of  leaves  from  the 
branches  of  the  elms,  Evelyn  told  the  Reverend  Mother 
the  story  of  the  musical  reformation  which  her  father  had 
achieved.  She  asked  Evelyn  if  it  would  be  possible  to 
give  Palestrina  at  the  convent  and  they  reached  the  oml 
of  the  walk.  It  was  flushed  with  September,  and  in  the 
glittering  stillness  the  name  of  Palestrina  was  exquisite 
to  speak.  They  passed  the  tall  cross  standing  at  the  top 
of  the  rocks,  and  the  Reverend  Mother  said,  speaking  out 
of  long  reflection — 

"  Have  I  never  heard  any  of  the  music  you  sing?  Wag- 
ner I  have  never  heard,  but  the  Italian  operas,  '  Lucia  '  and 
'Trovatore,'  or  Mozart?  Have  you  never  sung  Mozart?" 

"Very  little.  I  am  what  is  called  a  dramatic  soprano. 
The  only  Italian  opera  I've  sung  is  '  Norma.'  Do  you 
know  it?" 

"  Yes." 

"  I've  sung  Leonore — not  in  '  Trovatore,'  in  '  Fidel  io.'  " 

"  But  surely  you  admire  '  Trovatore  ' — the  '  Miserere,' 
for  instance.  Is  not  that  beautiful  ?  " 

"  It  is  no  doubt  very  effective,  but  it  is  considered  very 
common  .now."  Evelyn  hummed  snatches  of  the  opera; 
then  the  waltz  from  "  Traviata."  "  I've  sung  Margaret." 

"  Ah." 

And  as  she  hummed  the  Jewel  Song  she  watched  the 
Reverend  Mother's  face,  and  was  certain  that  the  nun  had 
heard  the  music  on  the  stage.  But  at  that  moment  the 
finirrlus  bell  rang.  Evelyn  had  forgotten  the  responses,  and 
:i^  she  walked  towards  the  convent  she  asked  the  Reverend 
Mother  to  repeat  them  once  again,  so  that  she  might  have 
them  by  heart.  She  excused  herself,  saying  how  difficult 
n-ns  the  observance  of  religious  forms  for  those  who  live  in 
the  world. 


EVELYN  INNES.  399 

After  dinner  she  wrote  two  letters.  One  was  to  her 
father,  the  other  was  to  Monsignor,  and  having  directed  the 
letters  she  imagined  the  postal  arrangement  to  be  some- 
what irregular.  After  Benediction  she  would  ask  Veronica 
what  time  the  letters  left  the  convent.  And  looking  across 
the  abyss  which  separated  them,  she  saw  her  passionate  self- 
centred  past  and  Veronica's  little  transit  from  the  school- 
room to  the  convent.  It  seemed  strange  to  her  that  she 
never  had  what  might  be  called  a  girl  friend.  But  she  had 
arrived  at  a  time  when  a  woman  friend  was  a  necessity, 
and  it  now  suddenly  occurred  to  her  that  there  would  be 
something  wonderfully  sweet  and  satisfying  in  the  un- 
critical love  of  a  woman  younger  than  herself.  She  felt 
that  the  love  of  this  innocent  creature  who  knew  nothing, 
who  never  would  know  anything,  and  who  therefore  would 
suspect  nothing,  would  help  her  to  forget  her  past  as  Mon- 
signor wished.  She  felt  a  sympathy  awaken  in  her  for  her 
own  sex  which  she  had  never  known  before,  and  this  yearn- 
ing was  confounded  in  a  desire  to  be  among  those  who 
knew  nothing  of  her  past.  Now  she  was  glad  that  she 
had  refrained  from  taking  the  Reverend  Mother  into  her 
confidence,  and  she  wondered  how  much  Monsignor  had 
told  her  the  day  they  had  walked  in  the  garden;  it  relieved 
her  to  remember  that  he  knew  very  little  except  what  she 
had  told  him  in  confession. 

Someone  knocked.  She  answered,  "  Come  in."  It  was 
Mother  Philippa  and  another  nun. 

"  I  hope  we're  not  interrupting.  .  .  .  But  you're  read- 
ing, I  see." 

"  No,  I  was  thinking ;  "  and  glad  of  the  interruption,  she 
let  the  book  fall  on  her  knees.  "  Pray  come  in,  Mother 
Philippa,"  and  Evelyn  rose  to  detain  her. 

The  nuns  entered  very  shyly.  Evelyn  handed  them 
chairs,  and  as  she  did  so  she  remarked  the  tall,  angular  nun 
who  followed  Mother  Philippa,  and  whose  face  expressed  so 
much  energy. 

"  Good  afternoon,  Miss  Innes.  I  hope  you  slept  well 
last  night,  and  did  not  find  your  bed  too  uncomfortable  ? " 

"  Thank  you,  Mother  Philippa.    I  liked  my  bed.    I  slept 

very  well."     Evelyn  drew  two  chairs  forward,  and  Mother 

Philippa  introduced  Evelyn  to   Sister  Mary  John.     And 

while  she  explained  that  she  had  heard  from  the  Reverend 

26 


400  EVELYN  INNES. 

Mother  that  Miss  Innes  had  promised  to  sing  at  Benedic- 
tion, Sister  Mary  John  sat  watching  Evelyn,  her  large 
brown  eyes  wide  open.  Her  eagerness  was  even  a  little 
comical,  and  Evelyn  smiled  through  her  growing  liking 
for  this  nun.  She  was  unlike  any  other  nun  she  had  seen. 
oSTuns  were  usually  formal  and  placid,  but  Sister  Mary 
John  was  so  irreparably  herself  that  while  the  others  pre- 
sented feeble  imitations  of  the  Reverend  Mother's  man- 
ner, her  walk  and  speech,  Sister  Mary  John  continued  to 
slouch  along,  to  cross  her  legs,  to  swing  her  arms,  to  lean 
forward  and  interrupt  when  she  was  interested  in  the  con- 
versation; when  she  was  not,  she  did  not  attempt  to  hide 
her  indifference.  Evelyn  thought  that  she  must  be  about 
eight-and-twenty  or  thirty.  The  eyes  were  brown  and 
exultant,  and  the  eyebrows  seemed  very  straight  and  black 
in  the  sallow  complexion.  All  the  features  were  large, 
but  a  little  of  the  radiant  smile  that  had  lit  up  all  her 
features  when  she  came  forward  to  greet  Evelyn  still 
lingered  on  her  face.  Now  and  then  she  seemed  to  grow 
impatient,  and  then  she  forgot  her  impatience  and  the 
smile  floated  back  again.  At  last  her  opportunity  came, 
and  she  seized  it  eagerly. 

"  I'm  quite  ashamed,  Miss  Innes,  we  sang  so  badly  this 
morning;  our  little  choir  can  do  better  than  that." 

"  I  was  interested ;  the  organ  was  very  well  played." 

"  Did  you  think  so  ?  I  have  not  sufficient  time  for  prac- 
tice, but  I  love  music,  and  am  longing  to  hear  you  sing. 
But  the  Reverend  Mother  says  that  you  have  brought  no 
music  with  you." 

"  I  hear,"  said  Mother  Philippa,  "  that  you  do  not  care 
for  Gounod's  '  Ave  Maria.'  " 

"  If  the  Reverend  Mother  wishes  me  to  sing  it,  I  shall  be 
delighted  to  do  so,  if  Sister  Mary  John  has  the  music." 

Sister  Mary  John  shook  her  head  authoritatively,  and 
said  that  she  quite  understood  that  Miss  Innes  did  not  ap- 
prove of  the  liberty  of  writing  any  melody  over  Bach's 
beautiful  prelude.  Besides,  it  required  a  violin.  The  con- 
versation then  turned  on  the  music  at  St.  Joseph's.  Sister 
Mary  John  listened,  breaking  suddenly  in  with  some  ques- 
tion regarding  Palestrina.  She  had  never  heard  any  of  his 
music;  would  Miss  Innes  lend  her  some?  Was  there  noth- 
ing of  his  that  they  could  sing  in  the  convent? 


EVELYN  INNES.  401 

"  I  do  not  know  anything  of  his  written  for  two  voices. 
You  might  play  the  other  parts  on  the  organ,  but  I'm  afraid 
it  would  sound  not  a  little  ridiculous." 

"  But  have  you  heard  the  Benedictine  nuns  sing  the 
plain  chant;  they  pause  in  the  middle  of  the  verse — that  is 
the  tradition,  is  it  not  ? " 

Meanwhile  Mother  Philippa  sat  forgotten.  Evelyn  no- 
ticed her  isolation  before  Sister  Mary  John,  and  addressed 
an  observation  to  her.  But  Mother  Philippa  said  she  knew 
nothing  about  music,  and  that  they  were  to  go  on  talking 
as  if  she  weren't  there.  But  a  mere  listener  is  a  dead 
weight  in  a  conversation ;  and  whenever  Evelyn's  eyes  went 
that  way,  she  could  see  that  Mother  Philippa  was  think- 
ing of  something  else;  and  when  she  looked  towards  Sister 
Mary  John  she  could  see  that  she  was  longing  to  be  alone 
with  her.  A  delightful  hour  of  conversation  awaited  them 
if  they  could  only  find  some  excuse  to  get  away  together, 
and  Evelyn  looked  at  Sister  Mary  John,  saying  with  her 
eyes  that  the  suggestion  must  come  from  her. 

"  If  I  were  to  take  Miss  Innes  to  the  organ  loft  and 
show  her  what  music  we  have — don't  you  think  so,  Mother 
Philippa?" 

"  Yes,  I  think  that  would  be  the  best  thing  to  do.  ... 
I'm  sure  the  Reverend  Mother  would  see  no  objection  to 
your  taking  Miss  Innes  to  the  organ  loft." 

Mother  Philippa  did  not  see  the  look  of  relief  and 
delight  that  passed  in  Sister  Mary  John's  eyes,  and  it  was 
Evelyn  who  had  a  scniple  about  getting  rid  of  Mother 
Philippa. 

"  I  was  so  disappointed  not  to  have  seen  you  the  day 
you  came  here;  and  what  made  it  so  hard  was  that  it  was 
first  arranged  that  it  was  the  Reverend  Mother  and  I  who 
were  to  meet  you.  I  had  looked  forward  to  seeing  you. 
I  love  music,  and  it  is  seven  years  since  I've  spoken 
to  anyone  who  could  tell  the  difference  between  a  third 
and  a  fourth.  There's  no  one  here  who  cares  about 
music." 

It  seemed  to  Evelyn  that  the  problem  of  life  must  have 
presented  itself  to  Sister  Mary  John  very  much  as  it  pre- 
sents itself  to  a  woman  who  is  suddenly  called  to  join  her 
husband  in  India.  The  woman  hates  leaving  London,  her 
friends,  and  all  the  habits  of  life  in  which  she  has  grown 


402  EVELYN  INNES. 

up;  but  she  does  not  hesitate  to  give  up  these  things  to 
follow  the  man  she  loves  out  to  India. 

"  I  don't  know  why  it  was  settled  that  Mother  Philippa 
was  to  meet  you  instead  of  me;  it  seemed  so  useless,  meet- 
ing you  meant  so  little  to  her  and  so  much  to  me;  I'm  al- 
ways inclined  to  argue,  but  that  day  the  Reverend  Mother's 
heart  was  very  bad;  she  had  had  a  fainting  fit  in  the 
early  morning;  we  all  got  up  to  pray  for  her." 

"  Yet  she  was  quite  cheerful ;  I  never  should  have 
guessed." 

"  Mother  Philippa  and  Mother  Mary  Hilda  tried  to 
dissuade  her.  But  she  would  see  you." 

"  Then  it  is  with  her  heart  disease  that  the  Reverend 
Mother  rules  the  convent/'  Evelyn  thought,  as  she  followed 
Sister  Mary  John  up  the  spiral  staircase  to  the  organ  loft. 
She  looked  over  the  curtained  railing  into  the  church. 
The  watcher  knelt  there,  her  head  bowed,  her  habit  still  as 
sculpture,  and  Evelyn  heard  Sister  Mary  John  pulling  out 
her  music.  She  could  not  find  what  she  wanted,  and  she 
sat  with  her  legs  apart,  throwing  from  side  to  side  piles 
of  old  torn  music. 

"  Never  can  one  find  a  piece  of  music  when  one  wants 
it:  I  don't  know  if  you  have  noticed  that  nothing  is  so 
difficult  to  find  as  a  piece  of  music.  Day  after  day  it  is 
under  your  hands,  it  would  seem  as  if  there  was  not  an- 
other piece  in  the  organ  loft,  but  the  moment  you  want  it, 
it  has  disappeared.  I  don't  know  how  it  is." 

"  What  are  you  looking  for  ?     Perhaps  I  can  help  you." 

"  Well,  I  was  thinking  that  you  might  like " — Sister 
Mary  John  looked  up  at  Evelyn — "  I  suppose  you  can  sing 
B  flat,  or  even  C  ? " 

"  Yes,  I  can  sing  C ;  "  and  Evelyn  thought  of  the  last 
page  of  the  "Dusk  of  the  Gods."  "But  what  are  you 
looking  for  ?  " 

Sister  Mary  John  did  not  answer.  She  threw  the  music 
from  side  to  side,  every  minute  growing  more  impatient. 
"  It  is  most  strange,"  she  said  at  last,  looking  up  at  Evelyn. 
Evelyn  smiled.  With  all  her  brusque,  self-willed  ways, 
Sister  Mary  John  was  clearly  a  lady  born  and  an  intelligent 
woman. 

"  I'm  afraid  I  shall  not  be  able  to  find  you  anything  that 
you'd  care  to  sing." 


EVELYN  INNES.  403 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  shall,"  Evelyn  replied  encouragingly. 

"  It  is  all  such  poor  stuff.  We've  no  singers  here.  Do 
you  know,  I've  never  heard  a  great  singer,  and  I've  often 
wished  to.  The  only  thing  I  regret  is  not  having  heard  a 
little  music  before  I  came  here.  But  I've  heard  of  Wag- 
ner ;  you  sing  Wagner,  don't  you,  Miss  Innes  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  sing  little  else.     *  Fidelio 


"  Ah,  I  know  some  of  the  music.     Do  you  sing " 

Sister  Mary  John  hummed  a  few  bars. 

"  Yes,  I  sing  that." 

"  Well,  I  shall  hear  you  sing  to-day.  I've  been  wishing 
to  go  to  St.  Joseph's  to  hear  Palestrina.  You  were  brought 
up  on  music.  You  can  sing  at  sight — in  the  key  that  it  is 
written  in  ? " 

"  Yes,  I  think  so." 

"  But  all  prima-donnas  can  do  that  ?  " 

"  No,  on  the  contrary,  I  think  I'm  the  only  one.  Sing- 
ers on  the  operatic  stage  learn  their  parts  at  the  piano." 

She  could  see  that  to  Sister  Mary  John  music  was  the 
temptation  of  her  life,  and  she  imagined  that  her  confes- 
sion must  be  a  little  musical  record.  She  had  lost  her  tem- 
per with  Sister  So-and-so  because  she  could  not,  etc.  But 
time  was  getting  on.  If  she  was  to  sing  that  afternoon, 
she  must  find  something,  and  seeing  that  Sister  Mary  John 
lingered  over  some  sheets  of  music,  as  if  she  thought  that 
it  presented  some  possibility,  Evelyn  asked  her  what  it  was. 
It  was  a  Mass  by  Mozart  for  four  voices,  which  Sister  Mary 
John  had  arranged  for  a  single  voice. 

"  The  choir  and  I  sing  the  melody  in  unison,  and  I  play 
the  entire  Mass  on  the  organ." 

Evelyn  smiled,  and  seeing  that  the  smile  distressed  the 
nun,  she  was  sorry. 

"  To  you,  of  course,  it  would  sound  absurd,  it  does  to  me 
too,  but  it  was  a  little  change,  it  was  the  only  thing  I  could 
think  of.  We  have  some  pieces  written  for  two  voices,  but 
I  can  hardly  get  them  sung.  I  have  to  teach  the  sisters  the 
parts  separately.  Till  they  know  them  by  heart,  I  can't 
trust  them.  It  is  impossible  sometimes  not  to  lose  one's 
temper.  If  we  had  a  few  good  voices,  people  would  come 
to  hear  them,  the  convent  would  be  spoken  about,  and  some 
charitable  people  would  come  forward  and  pay  off  our 
mortgages.  I've  lain  awake  at  night  thinking  of  it;  the 


404  EVELYN  INXES. 

Reverend  Mother  agrees  with  me.  But  in  the  way  of 
voices  we've  been  as  unlucky  as  we  could  well  be.  I've 
been  here  eight  years — there  was  one,  but  she  died  six  years 
ago  of  consumption.  It  is  heartbreaking.  I  play  the  or- 
gan, I  beat  the  time,  and,  as  I  said  to  them  the  other 
day,  '  There  are  five  of  you,  and  I'm  the  only  one  that 
sings.' " 

Sister  Mary  John  asked  Evelyn  if  she  composed.  Eve- 
lyn told  her  that  she  did  not  compose,  and  remembering 
Owen's  compositions,  she  hoped  that  Sister  Mary  John  had 
not  an  "  O  Salutaris  "  in  manuscript. 

"  Let  me  look  through  the  music ;  we  are  talking  of 
other  things  instead  of  looking." 

"  So  we  are.  .  .  .  Let  us  look."  At  the  bottom  of  a 
heap,  Sister  Mary  John  found  Cherubini's  "  Ave  Maria." 

"  Could  you  sing  this  ?  It  is  a  beautiful  piece  of 
music." 

Evelyn  read  it  over. 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  I  can  sing  it,  but  it  wants  careful 
playing;  the  end  is  a  sort  of  little  duet  between  the  voice 
and  the  organ.  If  you  don't  follow  me  exactly,  the  effect 
will  be  like  this,"  and  she  showed  what  it  would  be  on  the 
mute  keyboard. 

"  You  haven't  confidence  in  my  playing." 

"  Every  confidence,  Sister  Mary  John,  but  remember  I 
don't  know  the  piece,  and  it  is  not  easy.  I  think  we  had 
better  try  it  over  together." 

"  I  should  like  to  very  much,  but  you  will  not  sing  with 
all  your  voice  ? " 

"  No,  we'll  just  run  through  it.  .  .  ." 

The  nun  followed  in  a  sort  of  ecstasy,  and  when  they 
came  to  what  Evelyn  had  called  the  duet,  she  played  the 
beautiful  antiphonal  music  looking  up  at  the  singer.  The 
second  time  Evelyn  was  surer  of  herself,  and  she  let  her 
voice  flow  out  a  little  in  suave  vocalisation,  so  that  she 
might  judge  of  the  effect. 

"  I  told  you  that  I  had  never  heard  anyone  sing  before. 
If  you  were  one  of  us ! " 

Evelyn  laughed,  and  then,  catching  sight  of  the  nun's 
eyes  fixed  very  intently  upon  her,  she  spoke  of  the  beauty  (if 
the  "  Ave  Maria,"  and  was  surprised  that  she  did  not  know 
anything  of  Chcrubini's. 


EVELYN  INNES.  405 

"  Gracious,  how  the  time  has  gone !  That  is  the  first 
bell  for  vespers." 

She  hurried  away,  forgetting  all  about  Evelyn,  leaving 
her  to  find  her  way  back  to  her  room  as  best  she  could. 
But  Evelyn  found  Sister  Mary  John  waiting  for  her  at  the 
bottom  of  the  stairs.  She  had  come  back  for  her,  she  had 
just  remembered  her,  and  Sister  Mary  John  apologised  for 
her  absence  of  mind,  and  seemed  distressed  at  her  apparent 
rudeness.  They  walked  a  little  way  together,  and  the  nun 
explained  that  it  was  not  her  fault;  her  absence  of  mind 
was  an  inheritance  from  her  father.  Everything  she  had 
she  had  inherited  from  him — "my  love  of  music  and  my 
absence  of  mind." 

She  was  intensely  herself,  quaint,  eccentric,  but  she 
was,  Evelyn  reflected,  perhaps  more  distinctly  from  the 
English  upper  classes  than  any  of  the  nuns  she  had  seen 
yet.  She  had  not  the  sweetness  of  manner  of  the  Rev- 
erend Mother,  her  manners  were  the  oddest*,  but  withal 
she  had  that  refinement  which  Evelyn  had  first  noticed 
in  Owen,  and  afterwards  in  his  friends,  that  style  which 
is  inheritance,  which  tradition  alone  can  give.  She  had 
spoken  of  her  father,  and  Evelyn  could  easily  imagine 
Sister  Mary  John's  father — a  lord  of  old  lineage  dwelling 
in  an  eighteenth  century  house  in  the  middle  of  a  flat  park 
in  the  Midlands.  She  could  see  a  piece  of  artificial  lake 
obtained  by  the  damming  of  a  small  stream;  one  end  full 
of  thick  reeds,  in  which  the  chatter  of  wild  ducks  was  un- 
ceasing. But  her  family,  her  past,  her  name — all  was  lost 
in  the  convent,  in  the  veil.  The  question  was,  had  she 
renounced  the  world,  or  had  she  refused  the  world  ?  Evelyn 
could  not  even  conjecture.  Sister  Mary  John  was  outside 
not  only  of  her  experience,  but  also  of  her  present  percep- 
tion of  things.  Evelyn  wondered  why  one  of  such  marked 
individuality,  of  such  intense  personal  will,  had  chosen  a 
life  the  very  raison  d'etre  of  which  was  the  merging  of 
the  individual  will  in  the  will  of  the  community?  Why 
should  one,  the  essential  delight  of  whose  life  was  music, 
choose  a  life  in  which  music  hardly  appeared?  Was  her 
piety  so  great  that  it  absorbed  every  other  inclination? 
Sister  Mary  John  did  not  strike  her  as  being  especially  re- 
ligious. What  instinct  behind  those  brown  eyes  had  led 
her  to  this  sacrifice?  Apparently  at  pains  to  conceal  noth- 


406  EVELYN  INNES. 

ing,  Sister  Mary  John  concealed  the  essential.  Evelyn 
could  even  imagine  her  as  being  attractive  to  men — that 
radiant  smile,  the  beautiful  teeth,  and  the  tall,  supple  fig- 
ure, united  to  that  distinct  personality,  would  not  have 
failed  to  attract.  God  did  not  get  her  because  men  did 
not  want  her,  of  that  Evelyn  was  quite  sure. 

There  were  on  that  afternoon  assembled  in  the  little 
white  chapel  of  the  Passionist  Sisters  about  a  dozen  elderly 
ladies,  about  nine  or  ten  stout  ladies  dressed  in  black,  who 
might  be  widows,  and  perhaps  three  or  four  spare  women 
who  wore  a  little  more  colour  in  their  hats;  these  might 
be  spinsters,  of  ages  varying  between  forty  and  fifty-five. 
Amid  these  Evelyn  was  surprised  and  glad  to  perceive  three 
or  four  young  men;  they  did  not  look,  she  thought,  par- 
ticularly pious,  and  perceiving  that  they  wore  knicker- 
bockers, she  judged  them  to  be  cyclists  who  had  ridden  up 
from  Richmond  Park.  They  had  come  in  probably  to  rest, 
having  left  their  machines  at  the  inn.  Even  though  she 
was  converted,  she  did  not  wish  to  sing  only  to  women,  and 
it  amused  her  to  perceive  that  something  of  the  original 
Eve  still  existed  in  her.  But  if  any  one  of  these  young 
men  should  happen  to  have  any  knowledge  of  music,  he 
could  hardly  fail  to  notice  that  it  was  not  a  nun  who  was 
singing.  He  would  ride  away  astonished,  mystified;  he 
would  seek  the  explanation  of  the  mystery,  and  would  bring 
his  friend  to  hear  the  wonderful  voice  at  the  Passionist 
Convent.  By  the  time  he  came  again  she  would  be  gone, 
and  his  friend  would  say  that  he  had  had  too  much  to 
drink  that  afternoon  at  the  inn.  They  would  not  be  long 
in  finding  an  explanation;  but  should  there  happen  to  be 
a  journalist  there,  he  would  put  a  paragraph  in  the  papers, 
and  all  sorts  of  people  would  come  to  the  convent  and  go 
away  disappointed. 

She  looked  round  the  church,  calculating  its  resonance, 
and  thought  with  how  much  of  her  voice  she  should  sing 
so  as  to  produce  an  effect  without,  however,  startling  the 
little  congregation.  The  sermon  seemed  to  her  very  long; 
she  was  unable  to  fix  her  attention,  and  though  all  Father 
Daly  said  was  very  edifying,  her  thoughts  wandered,  and 
wonderful  legends  and  tales  about  a  voice  heard  for  one 
week  at  the  Wimbledon  Convent  thronged  her  brain,  and 
she  invented  quite  a  comic  little  episode,  in  which  some 


EVELYN  INNES.  407 

dozen  or  so  of  London  managers  met  at  Benediction.  She 
thought  that  their  excuses  one  to  the  other  would  be  very 
comic. 

She  was  wearing  the  black  lace  scarf  instead  of  a  hat; 
it  went  well  with  the  grey  alpaca,  and  under  it  was  her 
fair  hair;  and  when  she  got  up  to  go  to  the  organ  loft 
after  the  sermon,  she  felt  that  the  old  ladies  and  bicyclists 
were  already  wondering  who  she  was.  Her  involuntary 
levity  annoyed  her,  and  she  forced  a  certain  seriousness 
upon  herself  as  she  climbed  the  steep  spiral  staircase. 

"  So  you  have  found  your  way  .  .  .  this  is  our  choir," 
and  she  introduced  Evelyn  to  the  five  sisters,  hurrying 
through  their  names  in  a  low  whisper.  "  We  don't  sing  the 
*  O  Salutaris,'  as  there  has  been  exposition.  We'll  sing 
this  hymn  instead,  and  immediately  after  you'll  sing  the 
'  Ave  Maria ; '  it  will  take  the  place  of  the  Litany." 

Then  the  six  pale  voices  began  to  wail  out  the  hymn, 
wobbling  and  fluctuating,  the  only  steady  voice  being  Sister 
Mary  John's.  Though  mortally  afraid  of  the  Latin  sylla- 
bles, Evelyn  seconded  Sister  Mary  John's  efforts,  and  the 
others,  taking  courage,  sang  better  than  usual.  Sister 
Mary  John  turned  delighted  from  the  organ,  and,  her  eyes 
bright  with  anticipation,  said,  "  Now." 

She  played  the  introduction,  Evelyn  opened  her  music. 
The  moment  was  one  of  intense  excitement  among  the  five 
nuns.  They  had  gathered  together  in  a  group.  The  great 
singer  who  had  saved  their  convent  (had  it  not  been  for  her 
they  would  have  been  thrown  back  upon  the  world)  was  go- 
ing to  sing.  Evelyn  knew  what  was  passing  in  their  minds, 
and  was  a  little  nervous.  She  wished  they  would  not 
look  at  her  so,  and  she  turned  away  from  them.  Sister 
Mary  John  played  the  chord,  and  the  voice  began. 

Owen  often  said  that  if  Evelyn  had  two  more  notes  in 
her  voice  she  would  have  ranked  with  the  finest.  She  sang 
from  the  low  A,  and  she  could  take  the  high  C.  From  B  to 
B  every  note  was  clear  and  full,  one  as  the  other;  he  de- 
lighted especially  in  the  middle  of  her  voice;  for  one  whole 
octave,  and  more  than  an  octave,  her  voice  was  pure  and 
sonorous  and  as  romantic  as  the  finest  'cello.  And  the  ro- 
mance of  her  voice  transpired  in  the  beautiful  Beethoven- 
like  phrase  of  Cherubini's  "  Ave  Maria."  It  was  as  if  he 
had  had  her  voice  singing  in  his  ear  while  he  was  writing, 


408  EVELYN  INNES. 

when  he  placed  the  little  grace  notes  on  the  last  syllable  of 
Maria.  The  phrase  rose,  still  remaining  well  within  the 
medium  of  her  voice,  and  the  same  interval  happened  again 
as  the  voice  swelled  up  on  the  word  "  plena."  In  the  beauti- 
ful classical  melody  her  voice  was  like  a  'cello  heard  in  the 
twilight.  In  the  music  itself  there  is  neither  belief  nor 
prayer,  but  a  severe  dignity  of  line,  the  romance  of  col- 
umns and  peristyle  in  the  exaltation  of  a  calm  evening. 
Very  gradually  she  poured  her  voice  into  the  song,  and  her 
lips  seemed  to  achieve  sculpture.  The  lines  of  a  Greek 
vase  seemed  to  rise  before  the  eye,  and  the  voice  swelled  on 
from  note  to  note  with  the  noble  movement  of  the  bas-re- 
lief decoration  of  the  vase.  The  harmonious  interludes 
which  Sister  Mary  John  played  aided  the  excitement,  and 
the  nuns,  who  knelt  in  two  grey  lines,  were  afraid  to  look 
up.  In  a  remote  consciousness  they  feared  it  was  not 
right  to  feel  so  keenly;  the  harmonious  depth  of  the  voice 
entered  their  very  blood,  summoning  visions  of  angel  faces. 
But  it  was  an  old  man  with  a  white  beard  that  Veronica 
saw,  a  hermit  in  the  wilderness;  she  was  bringing  him 
vestments,  and  when  the  vision  vanished  Evelyn  was  sing- 
ing the  opening  phrase,  now  a  little  altered  on  the  words 
Santa  Maria. 

There  came  the  little  duet  between  the  voice  and  the 
organ,  in  which  any  want  of  precision  on  the  part  of  Sister 
Mary  John  would  spoil  the  effect  of  the  song ;  but  the  nun's 
right  hand  answered  Evelyn  in  perfect  concord.  And  then 
began  the  runs  introduced  in  the  amen  in  order  to  exhibit 
the  skill  of  the  singer.  The  voice  was  no  longer  a  'cello, 
deep  and  resonant,  but  a  lonely  flute  or  silver  bugle  an- 
nouncing some  joyous  reverie  in  a  landscape  at  the  close  of 
day.  The  song  closed  on  the  keynote,  and  Sister  Mary 
John  turned  from  the  instrument  and  looked  at  the  singer. 
She  could  not  speak,  she  seemed  overpowered  by  the  music, 
and  like  one  more  dreaming  than  waking,  and  sitting  half 
turned  round  on  her  seat,  she  looked  at  Evelyn. 

"  You  sing  beautifully,"  she  said.  "  I  never  heard  sing- 
ing before." 

And  she  sat  like  one  stupefied,  still  hearing  Evelyn's 
sm^ing  in  her  brain,  until  one  of  tho  sisters  advanced 
close  and  said,  "  Sister,  we  must  sing  the  '  Tantum  ergo.' " 

"  Of  course  we  must.    I  believe  if  you  hadn't  reminded 


EVELYN  INNES.  409 

me  I  should  have  forgotten  it.  Gracious!  I  don't  know 
what  it  will  sound  like  after  singing  like  that.  But  you'll 
lead  them?" 

Evelyn  hummed  the  plain  chant  under  her  breath, 
afraid  lest  she  should  extinguish  the  pale  voices,  and  sur- 
prised how  expressive  the  antique  chant  was  when  sung  by 
these  etiolated,  sexless  voices.  She  had  never  known  how 
much  of  her  life  of  passion  and  desire  had  entered  into  her 
voice,  and  she  was  shocked  at  its  impurity.  Her  singing 
sounded  like  silken  raiment  among  sackcloth,  and  she 
lowered  her  voice,  feeling  it  to  be  indecorous  and  out  of 
place  in  the  antique  hymn.  Her  voice,  she  felt,  must  have 
revealed  her  past  life  to  the  nuns,  her  voice  must  have 
shocked  them  a  little;  her  voice  must  have  brought  the 
world  before  them  too  vividly.  For  all  her  life  was  in  her 
voice,  she  would  never  be  able  to  sing  this  hymn  with  the 
same  sexless  grace  as  they  did.  Her  voice  would  be  always 
Evelyn  Innes — Owen  Asher's  mistress. 

The  priest  turned  the  Host  toward  them,  and  she  saw 
the  two  long  rows  of  grey-habited  nuns  leaning  their  veiled 
heads,  and  knew  that  this  was  the  moment  they  lived  for, 
the  essential  moment  when  the  body  which  the  Redeemer 
gave  in  expiation  of  the  sins  of  the  world  is  revealed.  Eve- 
lyn's soul  hushed  in  awe,  and  all  that  she  had  renounced 
seemed  very  little  in  this  moment  of  mystery  and  exalta- 
tion. 

"  What  am  I  to  say,  Miss  Innes  ?  I  shall  think  of  this 
day  when  I  am  an  old  woman.  But  you'll  sing  again  be- 
fore you  leave  ? " 

"  Yes,  sister,  whenever  you  like." 

"  When  I  like?  That  would  be  all  day.  But  I  did  fol- 
low you  in  the  duet,  I  was  so  anxious.  I  hope  I  did  not 
spoil  it?" 

"  I  was  never  better  accompanied.  You  made  no  mis- 
take." 

As  they  passed  by  her  the  other  nuns  thanked  her  under 
their  breath.  She  could  see  that  they  looked  upon  her  as 
a  providence  sent  by  God  to  save  them  from  being  cast  back 
upon  the  world  they  dreaded,  the  world  from  which  they 
had  fled.  But  all  this  extraordinary  drama,  this  intensity 
of  feeling,  remained  inarticulate.  They  could  only  say, 
"  Thank  you,  Miss  Innes ;  it  was  very  good  of  you  to  come 


410  EVELYN  INNES. 

to  sing  for  us."  It  was  their  very  dumbness  that  made 
them  seem  so  wonderful.  It  was  the  dumbness  of  these 
women — they  could  only  speak  in  prayer — it  was  that  that 
overcame  her.  But  the  Reverend  Mother  was  different. 
Evelyn  listened  to  her,  thinking  of  nothing  but  her,  and 
when  the  Reverend  Mother  left  her,  Evelyn  moved  away, 
still  under  the  spell  of  the  authoritative  sweetness  which 
her  presence  and  manner  exhaled.  But  the  Reverend 
Mother  was  only  a  part  of  a  scheme  of  life  founded  on 
principles  the  very  opposite  to  those  on  which  she  had  at- 
tempted to  construct  her  life.  Even  in  singing  the  "  Ave 
Maria,"  she  had  not  been  able  to  subdue  her  vanity.  Her 
pleasure  in  singing  it  had  in  a  measure  sprung  out  of  the 
somewhat  mean  desire  to  proclaim  her  superiority  over 
those  who  had  attained  the  highest  plane  by  renouncing 
all  personal  pride.  They  had  proclaimed  their  superiority 
in  their  obeisance.  It  was  in  giving,  not  in  receiving,  praise 
that  we  rise  above  ourselves.  This  was  the  lesson  that 
every  moment  of  her  convent  life  impressed  upon  her. 
Her  thoughts  went  back  to  the  Reverend  Mother,  and  Eve- 
lyn thought  of  her  as  of  some  woman  who  had  come  to  some 
terrible  crisis  in  her  worldly  life — some  crisis  violent  as  the 
crisis  that  had  come  in  her  own  life.  The  Reverend  Moth- 
er must  have  perceived,  just  as  she  had  done,  as  all  must 
do  sooner  or  later,  that  life  out  of  the  shelter  of  religion 
becomes  a  sort  of  nightmare,  an  intolerable  torture.  Then 
she  wondered  if  the  Reverend  Mother  were  a  widow — that 
appeared  to  her  likely.  One  who  had  suffered  some  great 
disaster — that  too  seemed  to  her  likely.  She  had  been  an 
ambitious  woman.  Was  she  not  so  still  ?  Is  a  passion  ever 
obliterated?  Is  it  not  rather  transformed?  If  she  had 
been  personally  ambitious,  she  was  now  ambitious  only  for 
her  convent :  her  passion  had  taken  another  direction. 
And  applying  the  same  reasoning  to  herself,  she  seemed  to 
see  a  future  for  herself  in  which  her  love  passions  would  be- 
come transformed  and  find  their  complete  expressions  in 
the  love  of  God. 

The  Reverend  Mother  again  addressed  her,  and  Evelyn 
considered  what  age  she  might  be.  Between  sixty  and 
seventy  in  point  of  years,  but  she  seemed  so  full  of  intel- 
ligence, wisdom  and  swootnoss  that  she  did  not  sujrin--!  ;ILT": 
one  did  not  think  of  her  as  an  old  woman.  Her  slight 


EVELYN  INNES.  411 

figure  still  retained  its  grace,  and  though  a  small  woman, 
she  suggested  a  tall  one;  and  the  moment  she  spoke  there 
was  the  voice  which  drew  you  like  silk  and  entangled  you 
as  in  a  soft  winding  web.  Evelyn  smiled  a  little  as  she 
listened,  for  she  was  thinking  how  the  Reverend  Mother 
as  a  young  woman  must  have  swayed  men.  Presumably 
at  one  time  it  had  pleased  her  to  sway  men's  passions,  or  at 
least  it  pleased  Evelyn's  imagination  to  think  it  had.  Not 
that  she  thought  the  Reverend  Mother  had  ever  been  any- 
thing but  a  good  woman,  but  she  had  been  a  woman  of  the 
world,  and  Evelyn  attributed  no  sin  in  that.  Even  the 
world  is  not  wholly  bad;  the  Reverend  Mother  and  Mon- 
signor  owed  their  personal  magnetism  to  the  world.  With- 
out the  world  they  would  have  been  like  Father  Daly  and 
Mother  Philippa — holy  simplicities.  She  looked  at  the 
quiet  nun,  and  her  simple  good  nature  touched  her.  Eve- 
lyn went  toward  her.  Sister  Mary  John  broke  into  the 
conversation  so  often  that  the  Reverend  Mother  had  once 
to  check  her. 

"  Sister  Mary  John,  we  hope  that  Miss  Innes  will  sing 
to-morrow  and  every  day  while  she  is  with  us.  But  she 
must  do  as  she  likes,  and  these  musical  questions  are  not 
what  we  are  talking  about  now." 

But  Sister  Mary  John  was  hardly  at  all  abashed  at 
this  reproof.  She  was  clearly  the  only  one  who  stood  in 
no  awe  of  the  Reverend  Mother. 

They  were  sitting  on  the  terrace,  and  a  mauve  sunset 
faded  in  the  grey  sky.  There  was  a  strange  wistfulness  in 
the  autumn  air  and  in  the  dim  garden  where  the  gentle 
nuns  were  taking  their  recreation.  There  was  a  subtle  har- 
mony in  the  grey  habits  and  floating  veils;  they  blended 
and  mingled  with  the  blue  mist  that  was  rising  among  the 
trees.  And  a  pale  light  fell  across  the  faded  lawns,  and 
Evelyn  looked  into  the  light,  and  felt  the  pang  that  the 
passing  of  things  brings  into  the  heart.  This  spectacle 
of  life  seemed  to  her  strangely  pathetic,  and  it  seemed  to 
mean  something  which  eluded  her,  and  which  she  would 
have  given  a  great  deal  to  have  been  able  to  express.  Music 
alone  could  express  the  yearning  that  haunted  her  heart, 
the  plaint  of  the  Rhine  Maidens  was  the  nearest  to  what 
she  felt,  and  she  began  to  sing  their  song.  Sister  Mary 
John  asked  her  eagerly  what  she  was  singing.  She  would 


412  EVELYN  IXNES. 

have  told  her,  but  the  Reverend  Mother  grew  impatient 
with  Sister  Mary  John. 

"  You  must  be  introduced  to  Mother  Mary  Hilda,  our 
novice  mistress,  then  you  will  know  all  the  mothers  except 

our  dear  Mother  ,  who  is  quite  an  invalid  now, 

and  rarely  leaves  her  cell." 

On  St.  Peter's  path  a  little  group  of  nuns  were  walking 
up  and  down,  pressing  round  a  central  figure.  They  were 
faint  grey  shadows,  and  their  meaning  would  not  be  dis- 
tinguished in  the  violet  dusk.  It  was  like  a  half  effaced 
picture  in  which  the  figures  are  nearly  lost  in  the  back- 
ground; their  voices,  however,  sounded  clear,  and  their 
laughter  was  mysterious  and  far  distant,  yet  distinct  in  the 
heart.  Evelyn  again  began  to  hum  the  plaint  of  the  Rhine 
Maidens.  But  the  voices  of  the  novices  were  more  joyous, 
for  they,  Evelyn  thought,  have  renounced  both  love  and 
gold.  The  Reverend  Mother  clapped  her  hands  to  attract 
attention,  and  one  of  the  novices,  it  was  Sister  Veronica, 
ran  to  them. 

"Ask  Mother  Mary  Hilda  to  come  and  speak  to  me, 
Veronica." 

"  Yes,  Reverend  Mother ;  "  and  Veronica  ran  with  the 
message  without  once  looking  at  Evelyn.  Mother  Mary 
Hilda  crossed  the  lawn  toward  them,  and  Evelyn  noticed 
her  gliding,  youthful  walk.  She  was  younger  than  the 
prioress  or  even  the  sub-prioress.  And  she  had  that  at- 
tractive youthfulness  of  manner  which  often  survives  in 
the  cloister  after  middle  age. 

"  Here  is  Miss  Innes,"  said  the  prioress ;  "  I  know  you 
wished  to  make  her  acquaintance." 

"  Yes,  indeed." 

Evelyn  noticed  the  bright  eyes  and  the  small,  clearly  cut 
nose  and  the  pointed  chin,  but  her  liveliest  sensation  was  of 
Mother  Hilda's  hand;  so  small  was  it  and  soft  that  it  seemed 
like  a  little  crushed  bird  in  Evelyn's  hand,  and  Evelyn  did 
not  think  that  hers  was  a  large  hand. 

"  1  am  sure,  Miss  Innes,  you  feel  that  you  have  been 
thanked  sufficiently  for  all  you  have  done  for  us,  but  you'll 
forgive  us  if  we  feel  that  we  cannot  thank  you  often 
enough.  Your  singing  at  Benediction  to-day  was  a  great 
pleasure  to  us  all.  Whose  '  Ave  Maria '  was  it,  Miss 
Innes?" 


EVELYN  INNES.  413 

Evelyn  told  them,  and  thinking  it  would  interest  the 
nuns,  she  admitted  that  her  father  would  not  allow  it  to  be 
sacred  music.  This  led  the  conversation  on  to  the  question 
of  Palestrina,  and  how  the  old  music  had  rescued  the 
Jesuits  from  their  pecuniary  embarrassments.  A  casual 
mention  of  Wagner  showed  her  that  the  Reverend  Mother 
was  interested,  and  she  said  that  she  might  sing  them 
Elizabeth's  prayer.  Evelyn  spoke  of  the  Chorale  in  the  first 
act  of  the  "  Meistersinger,"  and  this  led  her  into  quite  a 
little  account  of  the  music  she  sang  on  the  stage.  It 
pleased  her  to  notice  the  different  effect  of  her  account  of 
her  art  on  the  four  nuns.  The  conversation,  she  could  see, 
carried  the  prioress  back  into  the  past,  but  she  put  aside 
these  memories  of  long  ago  and  affected  a  polite  interest 
in  the  stage.  Mother  Philippa  listened  as  she  might  to  a 
story,  too  far  removed  from  her  for  her  to  be  more  than 
vaguely  interested;  Sister  Mary  John  listened  in  the  hopes 
that  Evelyn  would  illustrate  her  experience  with  some  few 
bars  of  the  music — with  her  it  was  the  music  and  nothing 
else;  Mother  Mary  Hilda  listened  very  prettily,  and  Eve- 
lyn noticed  that  it  was  she  who  asked  the  most  questions. 
Mother  Mary  Hilda  was-  the  most  fearless,  and  showed  the 
least  dread  in  the  conversation.  Yet  for  no  single  mo- 
ment did  Evelyn  think  that  she  was  the  worldliest  of  the 
four  nuns.  Evelyn  thought  that  probably  she  was  the 
least.  Her  trivial  utterances  were  the  necessity  of  the 
unimportant  moment,  and  she  seemed  to  bring  to  them  the 
enlightenment  of  her  own  vivid  faith.  The  holiness  that 
shone  out  of  her  eyes  inspired  the  calm,  tender  smile,  and 
was  in  her  whole  manner.  "  She  speaks,"  Evelyn  thought, 
"  of  worldly  things  without  affectation,  but  how  clear  it  is 
that  they  lie  outside,  far  outside,  of  her  real  life !  " 

Evelyn  was  saying  that  it  was  a  long  while  since  she  had 
sung  any  sacred  music,  and,  referring  to  the  difference  of 
the  rule  in  France  and  in  England,  she  mentioned  that  in 
Paris  the  opera  singers  frequently  sang  in  the  churches. 

"  It  must  be  hard  on  Catholics  with  beautiful  voices  like 
yours  that  they  may  not  be  allowed  to  sing  in  church  choirs, 
for  there  can  be  nothing  so  delightful  as  to  bring  a  great 
gift  to  God's  service." 

It  was  the  prioress  who  broke  off  the  conversation,  to 
Evelyn's  regret. 


414-  EVELYN  INNES. 

"  Mother  Hilda,  I  ana  afraid  we  are  forgetting  your 
young  charges." 

"  Yes,  indeed,  I  must  run  back  to  my  children.  Good- 
bye, Miss  limes,  I  am  so  glad  that  you  have  come  to  us ;  " 
and  the  warm,  soft  clasp  of  the  little  hand  was  to  Evelyn  a 
further  assurance  of  friendly  welcome. 


XXXV. 

SHE  was  ashamed  not  to  be  able  to  follow  the  Office  in 
chapel,  so  at  the  Reverend  Mother's  suggestion  she  con- 
sented to  employ  part  of  her  long  convent  leisure  in  tak- 
ing lessons  in  Latin.  Mother  Mary  Hilda  was  to  be  her  in- 
structress. 

The  library  was  a  long,  rather  narrow  room,  once  the 
drawing-room  of  the  Georgian  mansion.  Only  a  carved 
Adams'  chimney-piece,  now  painted  over  in  imitation  of 
oak,  remained  of  its  former  adornment;  the  tall  windows 
were  eighteenth  century,  and  with  that  air  they  looked 
upon  the  terrace.  The  walls  had  been  lined  by  the  nuns 
with  plain  wooden  shelves,  and  upon  them  were  what 
seemed  to  be  a  thousand  books,  every  one  in  a  grey  linen 
wrapper,  with  the  title  neatly  written  on  a  white  label 
pasted  on  the  back.  Evelyn's  first  thought  was  of  the  time 
it  must  have  taken  to  cover  them,  but  she  remembered  that 
in  a  convent  time  is  of  no  consequence.  If  a  thing  can  be 
done  better  in  three  hours  than  in  one,  there  is  no  reason 
why  three  hours  should  not  be  spent  upon  it.  She  had 
noticed,  too,  that  the  sisters  regarded  the  library  with  a 
little  air  of  demure  pride.  Mother  Mary  Hifda  had  told 
her  that  the  large  tin  boxes  were  filled  with  the  convent 
archives.  There  were  piles  of  unbound  magazines — the 
Month  and  the  Dublin  Review.  There  was  a  ponderous 
writing-table,  with  many  pigeon-holes ;  Evelyn  concluded  it 
to  be  the  gift  of  a  wealthy  convert,  and  she  turned  the  im- 
mense globe  which  showed  the  stars  and  planets,  and  won- 
dered how  the  nuns  had  become  possessed  of  such  a  thing, 
and  how  they  could  have  imagined  that  it  could  ever  bs 
of  any  use  to  them.  She  grew  fond  of  this  room,  and  di- 


EVELYN  INNES.  415 

vidcd  her  time  between  it  and  the  garden.  It  had  none  of 
the  primness  of  the  convent  parlour,  which  gave  her  a  little 
shiver  every  time  she  entered  it.  In  the  further  window 
there  stood  a  deep-seated,  venerable  armchair,  covered  in 
worn  green  leather,  the  one  comfortable  chair,  Evelyn  often 
thought,  in  the  convent.  And  in  this  chair  she  spent  many 
hours,  either  learning  to  construe  the  Office  with  Mother 
Mary  Hilda,  or  reading  by  herself.  The  investigation  of 
the  shelves  was  an  occupation,  and  the  time  went  quickly, 
taking  down  book  after  book,  and  she  seemed  to  penetrate 
further  into  the  spirit  of  the  convent  through  the  medium 
of  the  convent  books. 

The  light  literature  of  the  convent  were  improving 
little  tales  of  conversions,  and  edifying  stories  of  Catholic 
girls  who  decline  to  enter  into  mixed  marriages,  and  she 
thought  of  the  novices  reading  this  artless  literature  on 
Sunday  afternoons.  There  were  endless  volumes  of  medi- 
tations, mostly  translations  from  the  French,  full  of  Gal- 
licisms and  parenthetical  phrases,  and  Evelyn  often  began 
a  paragraph  a  second  time;  but  in  spite  of  her  efforts  to 
control  her  thoughts  they  wandered,  and  her  eyes,  lost  in 
reverie,  were  fixed  on  the  sunny  garden. 

She  returned  the  volume  to  the  shelves,  and  remember- 
ing Mother  Mary  Hilda's  recommendation,  she  took  down 
a  volume  of  Faber's  works.  She  found  his  effusive,  senti- 
mental style  unendurable;  and  had  turned  to  go  to  her 
room  for  one  of  the  books  she  had  brought  with  her  when 
her  eyes  lighted  upon  Father  Dalgairn's  Frequent  Com- 
munion. The  father's  account  of  the  various  customs  of 
the  Church  regarding  the  administration  of  the  Sacrament 
— the  early  rigorism  of  the  African  fathers,  and  the  later 
rigorism  of  the  Jansenists  at  once  interested  her,  and,  lift- 
ing her  eyes  from  the  book,  she  remembered  that  the  Sacra- 
ment had  always  been  the  central  light  around  which  the 
spiritual  belief  of  the  Church  had  revolved.  Her  instinctive 
religion  had  always  been  the  Sacrament.  When  Huxley 
and  Darwin  and  Spencer  had  undermined  the  foundations 
of  her  faith,  and  the  entire  fabric  of  revelation  was  shower- 
ing about  her,  her  belief  in  the  Divine  Presence  had  re- 
mained, burning  like  a  lamp,  inviolate  among  the  debris 
of  a  temple.  She  had  never  been  able  to  resist  the  Sacra- 
ment. She  had  put  her  belief  in  the  mystery  of  transub- 
27 


416  EVELYN  INNES. 

stantiation  to  the  test,  and  when  the  sanctus  bell  rang, 
her  head  had  solemnly  bowed;  softer  than  rose  leaves  or 
snowflakes,  belief  had  rained  down  upon  her  choked  heart. 
She  had  never  been  able  to  reason  about  the  Divine  Pres- 
ence— she  felt  it.  She  had  believed  whether  she  willed  it 
or  not.  Owen's  arguments  had  made  no  difference.  Her 
desire  of  the  Sacrament  had  more  than  once  altered  the 
course  of  her  life,  and  that  she  should  have  unconsciously 
wandered  back  to  the  Passionist  Convent,  a  convent  vowed 
to  Perpetual  Adoration,  seemed  to  her  to  be  full  of  signifi- 
cance. 

Father  Dalgairn's  book  had  made'  clear  to  her  that 
wherever  she  went  and  whatever  she  did  she  would  always 
believe  in  the  Divine  Presence.  His  book  had  discovered 
to  her  the  instinctive  nature  of  her  belief  in  the  Sacra- 
ment, but  it  had  not  widened  her  spiritual  perceptions, 
still  less  her  artistic;  the  delicious  terror  and  irresistible 
curiosity  which  she  experienced  on  opening  St.  Teresa's 
Book  of  Her  Life  she  had  never  experienced  before.  It 
was  like  re-birth,  being  born  to  a  new  experience,  to  a 
purer  sensation  of  life.  It  was  like  throwing  open  the 
door  of  a  small,  confined  garden,  and  looking  upon  the 
wide  land  of  the  world.  It  was  like  breathing  the  wide 
air  of  eternity  after  that  of  a  close-scented  room.  She 
knew  that  she  was  not  capable  of  such  pure  ecstasy,  yet  it 
seemed  to  her  very  human  to  think  and  feel  like  this;  and 
the  saint's  holy  rapture  seemed  as  natural — she  thought 
for  a  moment — even  more  natural,  even  more  truly  human 
than  the  rapture  which  she  found  in  sinful  love. 

Before  she  had  read  a  dozen  pages,  she  seemed  to  know 
her  like  her  own  soul,  though  yet  unaware  whether  the 
saint  lived  in  this  century  or  a  dozen  centuries  ago.  For 
all  she  said  about  the  material  facts  of  her  life  St.  Teresa 
might  be  alive  to-day  and  in  England.  She  lived  in  aspira- 
tion, out  of  time  and  place;  and  like  one  who,  standing 
upon  a  hill  top,  sees  a  bird  soaring,  a  wild  bird  with  the 
light  of  the  heavens  upon  its  wings,  Evelyn  seemed  to  see 
this  soul  waving  its  wings  in  its  flight  towards  God.  The 
soul  sang  love,  love,  love,  and  heaven  was  overflowed  with 
cries  for  its  Divine  Master,  for  its  adorable  Master,  for  its 
Bridegroom-elect. 

The  extraordinary  vehemence  and  passion,  the  daring 


EVELYN  TNNES,  417 

realism  of  St.  Teresa  reminded  Evelyn  of  Vittoria.  She 
found  the  same  unrestrained  passionate  realism  in  both; 
she  thought  of  Velasquez's  early  pictures,  and  then  of 
Ribera.  Then  of  TJlick,  who  had  told  her  that  the  great 
artist  dared  everything.  St.  Teresa  had  dared  everything. 
She  had  dared  even  to  discriminate  between  her  love  of 
God  the  Father  and  God  the  Son.  It  was  God  the  Father 
that  inspired  in  her  the  highest  ecstasy,  the  most  complete 
abandonment  of  self.  In  these  supreme  moments  the  hu- 
man form  of  Jesus  Christ  was  a  hindrance,  as  in  a  lower 
level  of  spiritual  exaltation  it  was  a  help. 

"  The  moment  my  prayer  began  to  pass  from  the  natural 
to  the  supernatural,  I  strove  to  obliterate  from  my  soul 
every  physical  obstacle.  To  lift  my  soul  up,  to  contem- 
plate, I  dared  not;  aware  of  my  imperfection  it  seemed 
over  bold.  Nevertheless  I  know  the  presence  of  God  to  be 
about  me,  and  I  tried  to  gather  myself  in  him.  And  noth- 
ing could  then  induce  me  to  return  to  the  sacred  humanity 
of  the  Saviour." 

But  how  touching  is  the  saint's  repentance  for  this 
infidelity  to  the  Divine  Bridegroom. 

"  O  Lord  of  my  soul,  of  all  my  goods,  Jesus  crucified,  I 
shall  never  remember  without  pain  that  I  once  thought  this 
thing.  I  shall  think  of  it  as  a  great  treason,  and  I  stand 
convicted  before  the  Good  Master;  and  though  it  pro- 
ceeded from  my  ignorance,  I  shall  never  expiate  it  with 
tears." 

Just  as  every  variation  of  habit,  of  fashion  is  noticeable 
to  those  who  live  outside  themselves,  so  the  changes  and 
complexities  in  the  life  of  the  soul  are  perceived  by  them 
who  live  within  themselves.  The  saint  relates  how  for 
many  months  she  refrained  from  prayer,  and  as  we  know 
that  prayer  was  the  source  of  all  her  joy,  a  joy  touching 
ecstasy,  often  above  the  earth  and  resplendent  with  vision, 
we  can  imagine  the  anguish  that  these  abstinences  must 
have  caused  her. 

"  To  destroy  confidence  in  God  the  Demon  spread  a 
snare,  his  most  insidious  snare.  He  persuaded  me  that 


418  EVELYN  INNES. 

owing  to  my  imperfections  I  could  not,  without  being 
wanting  in  humility,  present  myself  in  prayer  to  God. 
This  caused  me  such  anguish  that  for  a  year  and  a  half  I 
refrained.  For  at  least  a  year,  for  the  six  months  follow- 
ing I  am  not  sure  of  my  memory.  Unfortunate  one,  what 
did  I  do !  By  my  own  act  I  plunged  myself  in  hell  without 
demons  being  about  to  drag  me  there." 

This  scruple  is  followed  by  others.  The  saint  suspects 
the  entire  holiness  of  her  joy  in  prayer,  and  she  asks  if 
these  transports  were  contrived  by  the  Demon  or  if  they 
wei*e  granted  to  her  by  God.  Her  anxiety  is  great,  and 
men  learned  in  holy  doctrine  are  consulted.  They  incline 
to  the  belief  that  her  visions  proceed  from  God,  and  en- 
courage her  to  persevere.  Then  she  cries  to  her  Divine 
Master,  to  the  Lord  of  her  soul,  to  her  adorable  Master, 
to  the  adorable  Bridegroom. 

"  Cannot  we  say  of  a  soul  to  whom  God  extends  this 
solicitude  and  these  delicacies  of  love  that  the  soul  has 
made  for  our  Lord  a  bed  of  roses  and  lilies,  and  that  it  is 
impossible  that  this  adorable  Master  will  not  come,  though 
he  may  delay,  and  take  his  delight  with  her." 

This  saint,  in  whom  religion  was  genius,  was  one  of 
Ulick's  most  unqualified  admirations.  He  never  spoke  of 
her  that  his  voice  did  not  acquire  an  accent  of  conviction, 
or  without  alluding  to  the  line  of  an  old  English  poet,  who 
had  addressed  her: 

"Oh,  thou  undaunted  daughter  of  desires." 

She  recalled  with  a  smile  his  contempt  of  the  Austins 
and  the  Eliots,  those  most  materialistic  writers,  he  would 
say,  whose  interest  in  humanity  and  whose  knowledge  of  it 
is  limited  to  social  habits  and  customs.  But  St.  Teresa  he 
placed  among  the  highest  writers,  among  the  great  vision- 
aries. "  Her  desire  sings,"  he  said,  "  like  the  sea  and  the 
winds,  and  it  breaks  like  fire  about  God's  feet."  He  had 
said  that  the  soul  that  flashed  from  her  pages  was  more 
intense  than  any  soul  in  Shakespeare  or  Balzac.  "  They 
had  created  many,  she  but  one  incomparable  soul — her 
own,  and  in  surging  drift  of  vehement  aspiration,  and  in 


EVELYN  INNES.  419 

recession  of  temporal  things  we  hear  the  singing  of  the 
stars,  the  beating  of  the  eternal  pulse." 

On  Friday  she  had  finished  the  autobiography,  and  be- 
fore going  into  the  garden  she  took  down  another  of  the 
saint's  works,  The  Way  of  Perfection,  intending  to  look 
through  it  in  some  sunny  corner. 

She  had  slipped  easily  into  the  early  hours  of  the  con- 
vent. After  breakfast  she  had  the  morning  to  herself,  and 
she  divided  it  between  the  library  and  the  garden.  The 
leaves  were  beginning  to  fall,  and  in  the  thinning  branches 
there  seemed  to  be  an  appearance  of  spring.  From  St. 
Peter's  walk  she  strolled  into  the  orchard,  and  then  into 
the  piece  of  uncultivated  ground  at  the  end  of  it.  Some  of 
the  original  furze  bushes  remained,  and  among  these  a 
streamlet  trickled  through  the  long  grasses,  and  following 
it  she  found  that  it  led  her  to  the  fish  pond  in  the  shrub- 
bery, at  the  back  of  St.  Peter's  walk.  There  was  there  a 
pleasant,  shady  place,  where  she  could  sit  and  read.  She 
stood  for  a  moment  watching  the  fish.  They  were  so  tame 
that  they  would  take  the  bread  from  the  novice's  hands. 
She  had  brought  some  bread,  but  she  had  to  throw  it  to 
them.  She  divided  it  amongst  them,  not  forgetting  to  fa- 
vour the  little  ones,  and  she  thought  it  strange  that  they 
could  distinguish  her  from  the  novices.  That  much  they 
knew  of  the  upper  air.  The  fish  watched  her  out  of  their 
beady  eyes,  stirring  in  their  dim  atmosphere  with  a  strange, 
finny  motion. 

At  that  hour  of  the  day  the  sun  was  warm  enough  to 
sit  out;  the  little  shiver  in  the  air  was  not  unpleasant; 
and  sitting  on  the  garden  bench,  she  opened  her  book  in  a 
little  tremor  of  excitement.  Her  thoughts  fluttered,  and 
she  strove  to  imagine  what  book  the  saint  could  have  writ- 
ten to  justify  so  beautiful  a  title.  Her  expectations  were 
realised.  The  character  of  the  book  is  clearly  defined  in 
the  first  pages :  she  perceived  it  to  be  a  complete  manual  of 
convent  life,  a  perfect  compendium  of  a  nun's  soul.  On 
its  pages  lay  that  shadowy,  evanescent  and  hardly  appre- 
hensible thing — the  soul  of  a  nun,  only  the  soul,  not  a  word 
regarding  her  daily  life:  any  mother-abbess  could  have 
written  such  a  materialistic  book:  St.  Teresa,  with  the  in- 
stinct of  her  genius,  addressed  herself  to  the  task  which 
none  but  she  could  fulfil — the  evolution  of  a  nun's  soul. 


420  EVELYN  INXES. 

And  as  Evelyn  read  she  marked  the  passages  that  specially 
caught  her  attention. 

"  Do  not  imagine,  my  daughters,  that  it  is  useless  to 
pray,  as  you  are  constantly  praying,  for  the  defenders  of  the 
Church:  Have  a  care  lest  you  should  share  the  opinion 
of  certain  folk  to  whom  it  seems  hard  that  they  should  not 
pray  much  oftener  for  themselves.  Believe  me  that  no 
prayer  is  better  or  more  profitable  than  that  of  which  I  am 
speaking.  Perhaps  you  fear  that  it  will  not  go  to  dimin- 
ish the  pains  which  you  will  suffer  in  purgatory :  I  answer 
that  such  prayer  is  too  holy  and  too  pleasing  to  God  to  be 
useless.  Even  if  the  time  of  your  expiation  should  be  a 
little  longer — well,  let  it  be  so." 

"  Oh,  to  be  good  like  that,"  she  thought.  And  her  soul 
raised  its  eyes  in  a  little  shy  emulation.  ...  A  few  pages 
further  on  she  read — 

"  That  all  may  take  heed.  For  neglect  of  this  counsel 
a  nun  may  find  herself  in  an  entanglement  from  which  she 
may  not  find  strength  to  free  herself.  And  then,  great 
God!  What  feebleness,  what  puerile  complaisances  this 
particular  friendship  may  not  be  the  source.  It  is  im- 
possible to  say  what  number,  none  but  an  eye-witness  may 
believe.  They  are  but  trifles,  and  I  see  no  reason  for 
specifying  them  here.  I  merely  add:  in  whosoever  it  is 
found  it  is  an  evil,  in  a  superior  it  is  a  plague  spot.  .  .  . 

"  An  excellent  remedy  is  to  be  together  only  at  those 
times  enjoined  by  the  rule,  on  other  occasions  to  refrain 
from  speech,  as  is  now  our  custom,  and  to  live  separately 
each  in  her  cell  as  the  rule  ordains.  And,  although  it  be  a 
praiseworthy  custom  to  unite  for  work  in  a  community 
room,  I  desire  that  the  nuns  of  the  convent  of  St.  Joseph 
shall  be  freed  from  this  custom,  for  it  is  much  easier  to 
keep  silence  if  each  works  in  her  cell.  Moreover,  it  is  of 
the  first  importance  to  accustom  oneself  to  solitude,  in 
order  to  advance  oneself  in  prayer;  and  as  prayer  should 
be  the  mortar  of  this  monastery,  we  should  cherish  all  that 
which  increases  the  spirit  in  us." 

Glancing  down  the  pages,  her  eyes  were  arrested  by  a 
passage  of  even  more  subtle,  more  penetrating  wisdom. 


EVELYN  IXNES.  421 

"  "Would  you  know  a  certain  sign,  my  daughters,  by 
which  you  may  judge  of  your  progress  in  virtue  ?  Let  each 
one  look  within  herself  and  discover  if  she  believes  herself 
to  be  the  unworthiest  of  you  all,  and  if  for  the  benefit  of 
the  others  she  makes  it  visible  by  her  actions  that  she  really 
thinks  that  this  is  so,  that  is  the  certain  sign  of  spiritual 
advancement,  and  not  delight  in  prayer,  nor  ravishment, 
nor  visions,  and  such  like  favours  which  God  grants  to 
souls  when  he  is  so  pleased.  We  shall  only  know  the  value 
of  such  favours  in  the  next  world.  It  is  not  so  with  hu- 
mility— humility  is  a  money  which  is  always  current,  it  is 
safely  invested  capital,  a  perpetual  income;  but  extraor- 
dinary favours  are  money  which  is  lent  for  a  time  and  may 
at  any  moment  be  called  in.  I  repeat,  our  true  treasure  is 
profound  humility,  great  mortification,  and  an  obedience 
which,  seeing  God  in  the  superior,  submits  to  his  every 
order." 

The  saint's  delicate  yet  virile  perception,  and  her  power 
of  expressing  the  shadowy  and  evanescent,  filled  Evelyn 
with  admiration ;  and  the  saint  appeared  to  her  in  the  light 
of  a  great  novelist;  she  wondered  if  Balzac  had  ever  read 
these  pages. 

"  The  best  remedy,  in  my  opinion,  that  a  nun  can  em- 
ploy to  conquer  the  imperfect  affection  which  she  still  bears 
her  parents,  is  to  abstain  from  seeing  them  until  by  patient 
prayer  she  has  obtained  from  God  the  freedom  of  her  soul; 
when  she  is  so  disposed  that  their  visits  is  a  cross,  let  her 
see  them  by  all  means.  For  then  she  will  bring  good  to 
their  souls,  and  do  no  harm  to  her  own." 

This  seemed  not  a  little  grim.  But  how  touching  is 
the  personal  confession  which  appears  on  the  following 
page. 

"  My  parents  loved  me  extremely,  according  to  what 
they  said,  and  I  loved  them  in  a  way  that  did  not  allow 
them  to  forget  me.  Nevertheless  I  have  seen  from  what 
has  happened  to  me,  and  what  has  happened  to  other  nuns, 
how  little  we  may  count  upon  their  affection  for  us." 

The  unselfishness  of  such  conduct  seemed  open  to  doubt. 


422  EVELYN  INNES. 

But  unselfishness  is  a  word  that  none  may  speak  without 
calling  into  question  the  entire  conduct  of  his  or  her  life. 
Evelyn  remembered  that  she  had  left  her  father  for  the 
sake  of  her  voice,  and  that  she  had  refused  to  marry  Owen 
because  marriage,  especially  marriage  with  Owen,  did  not 
seem  compatible  with  her  soul's  safety.  Looked  at  from 
a  certain  side,  her  life  did  seem  self-centred,  but  allowance, 
she  thought,  must  be  made  for  the  difficulties — the  entan- 
glements in  which  the  first  false  step  had  involved  her. 
But  in  any  case  she  must  not  question  the  efficacy  of 
prayer,  that  was  a  dogma  of  the  Church.  The  mission  of 
the  contemplative  orders  is  to  pray  for  those  who  do  not 
pray  for  themselves,  and  if  we  believe  in  the  efficacy  of 
prayer,  we  need  not  scruple  to  leave  our  parents  to  live  in 
a  monastery  where,  by  our  prayers,  we  help  them  to  eternal 
salvation.  We  leave  them  for  a  little  while,  but  only  that 
we  may  live  with  them  for  ever. 

"  Believe  me,  my  dear  sisters,  if  you  serve  him  well  you 
will  not  find  better  parents  than  those  the  Divine  Master 
sends  you.  I  know  that  it  is  even  so." 

"  What  beauty  there  is  in  her  sternness ! "  Evelyn 
thought. 

"  I  repeat  that  those  whose  trend  is  toward  worldly 
things,  and  who  do  not  make  progress  in  virtue,  shall  leave 
this  monastery;  should  she  persist  in  remaining  a  nun  let 
her  enter  another  convent;  for  if  she  doesn't  she  will  see 
what  will  happen  to  her.  Nor  must  she  complain  about 
me;  nor  accuse  me  of  not  having  made  known  to  her  Un- 
practical life  of  the  monastery  I  founded.  If  there  is  an 
earthly  paradise  it  is  in  this  house,  but  only  for  souls  \vho 
desire  nothing  but  to  please  God,  who  have  no  thought 
for  themselves;  for  these  the  life  here  is  infinitely  agree- 
able." 

This  passage  is  one  of  the  very  few  in  which  appears  th" 
wise,  practical  woman,  the  founder  of  an  order  and  of 
many  monasteries,  who  lived  side  by  side  in  the  same  1 
the  constant  associate  of  the  lyrical  saint.    Evelyn  tried  to 
picture  her  to  herself,  and  two  pictures  alternated  in  her 


EVELYN  INNES.  423 

thoughts.  She  saw  deep,  eager,  passionate  eyes,  and  a  frail, 
exhausted  body  borne  along  easily  by  the  soul,  and  doing 
the  work  of  the  unconquerable  soul.  In  the  second  picture, 
there  were  the  same  consuming  eyes,  the  same  wasted  body, 
but  the  expression  was  quite  different.  The  saint's  manner 
was  the  liveliest,  happiest  manner,  and  Evelyn  thought  of 
the  privilege  of  such  companionship,  and  she  envied  those 
who  had  walked  with  her,  hearing  her  speak. 

The  little  pond  at  her  feet  was  full  of  fair  reflections  of 
the  sky  and  trees,  and  the  idea  of  convent  life  lay  on  the 
pages  of  the  book  even  as  fair.  In  itself  it  was  disparate 
and  vague,  but  on  the  pages  of  the  book  it  floated  clear  and 
distinct.  She  asked  if  any  of  the  Wimbledon  nuns  lived  a 
life  of  that  intense  inward  rapture  which  St.  Teresa  deemed 
essential  if  a  sister  were  to  be  allowed  to  remain  in  the 
convent  of  St.  Joseph  at  Avila,  and  the  coincidence  of  the 
names  gave  her  pause.  This  convent's  patron  saint  was 
St.  Joseph,  and  she  sought  for  some  resemblance  between 
the  Eeverend  Mother  and  St.  Teresa.  She  wondered  if  she, 
Evelyn,  were  a  nun,  towards  which  of  the  nuns  would  her 
personal  sympathies  incline:  would  she  love  better  Sister 
Veronica  or  Sister  Mary  John?  It  might  be  Mother  Mary 
Hilda.  It  would  be  one  of  the  three.  There  was  not 
one  among  the  others  likely  to  interest  her  in  the  least. 
She  tried  to  imagine  this  friendship:  it  assumed  a  vague 
shape  and  then  dissolved  in  the  distance.  But  would  the 
Reverend  Mother  tolerate  this  friendship,  or  would  it  be 
promptly  cut  down  to  the  root  according  to  the  advice  of 
St.  Teresa? 

Her  thoughts  pursued  their  way,  now  and  then  splash- 
ing as  they  leaped  out  of  the  soul's  dimness.  Only  the 
splashing  of  the  fish  broke  the  stillness  of  the  garden,  and 
startled  at  a  sudden  gurgling  sound,  she  rose,  in  time  to 
see  a  shadowy  shape  sinking  with  a  motion  of  fins  amid 
the  weeds.  That  she  should  be  living  in  a  convent,  that 
she  should  have  repented  of  her  sins,  that  the  fish  should 
leap  and  fall  back  with  strange,  gurgling  sound,  filled  her 
with  wonderment.  The  vague  autumn  blue  expressed  some 
vague  yearning,  some  indistinct  aspiration;  the  air  was 
like  crystal,  the  leaves  were  falling.  .  .  .  We  have  percep- 
tions of  the  outer  forms  of  things,  but  that  is  all  we  know 
of  them.  The  only  thing  we  are  sure  of  is  what  is  in  our- 


424  EVELYN  INNES. 

selves.  We  know  the  difference  between  right  and  wrong:! 
She  stood  for  a  long  time  at  the  edge  of  the  fish  pond, 
gazing  into  the  vague  depths.  Then  she  walked,  exalted, 
overcome  by  the  mystery  of  things.  She  seemed  to  walk 
upon  air,  the  world  was  a-thrill  with  spiritual  significance, 
all  was  symbol  and  exaltation.  Her  past  life  shrank  to 
a  tiny  speck,  and  she  knew  that  she  had  been  happy  only 
since  she  had  been  in  the  convent.  Ah,  that  little  chapel, 
haunted  by  prayers!  it  breathed  prayer,  in  that  chapel 
contemplation  was  never  far  off.  She  had  prayed  there 
as  she  had  never  prayed  before,  and  she  wondered  if  she 
should  attribute  the  difference  in  her  prayers  to  the  chapel 
or  to  herself.  She  had  always  felt,  in  a  dumb,  instinctive 
way,  that  to  her  at  least  everything  depended  on  her 
chastity.  .  .  .  She  had  been  chaste  now  a  long  while.  The 
explanation  seemed  to  have  come  to  her.  Yes,  it  is  by  de- 
nial of  the  sexual  instinct  that  we  become  religious. 

As  she  passed  through  the  orchard  she  caught  sight 
of  the  strange  little  person  whom  she  had  seen  in  chapel 
with  a  pile  of  prayer  books  beside  her,  and  who  always  wore 
something  startlingly  blue,  whether  skirt,  handkerchief  or 
cloak.  She  had  met  her  in  the  garden  before,  but  she  had 
hurried  away,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground.  Mother  Philip- 
pa  had  spoken  of  a  Miss  Dingle,  a  simple-minded  person 
who  had  been  sent  by  her  family  to  the  convent  to  be 
looked  after  by  the  nuns,  and  Evelyn  concluded  that  it  must 
be  she.  But  at  that  moment  other  thoughts  engaged  her 
attention,  and  she  lingered  in  the  orchard,  returning  slowly 
by  St.  Peter's  walk.  As  she  passed  the  Georgian  temple  or 
summer-house,  she  was  taken  by  a  desire  to  examine  it, 
and  there  she  found  Miss  Dingle.  She  was  seated  on  tho 
floor,  engaged,  so  Evelyn  thought,  in  a  surreptitious  game 
of  Patience.  That  was  only  how  she  could  account  for 
Miss  Dingle's  consternation  and  fear  at  seeing  her.  But 
what  she  had  taken  for  cards  were  pious  pictures.  Eve- 
lyn stood  in  the  doorway,  and  for  the  first  time  had  an  op- 
portunity of  seeing  what  Miss  Dingle  was  really  like.  It 
was  difficult  to  say  whether  her  face  was  ugly  or  pretty; 
the  features  were  not  amiss — it  was  the  expression,  vague 
and  dim  like  that  of  an  animal,  that  puzzled  Evelyn. 

"  Please  let  me  help  you  to  pick  up  your  pictures." 
Miss  Dingle  did  not  answer,  and  Evelyn  feared  for  a  mo- 


EVELYN  INNES.  425 

ment  that  she  had  offended  her.  "  Won't  you  let  me  help 
you  to  pick  up  your  pictures  ? " 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  you  may  help  me  to  pick  them  up, 
but  you  must  be  very  quick." 

"  But  why  must  I  be  quick  ?  Are  you  in  such  a  very 
great  hurry  ? " 

Miss  Dingle  seemed  uncertain  of  her  own  thoughts,  and 
to  reassure  her  Evelyn  asked  her  if  she  would  not  like  to 
walk  with  her  in  the  orchard. 

"  Oh,"  she  said,  looking  at  Evelyn  shyly — it  was  a  sort 
of  child-like  curiosity,  "  I  dare  not  go  into  the  orchard 
to-day.  ...  I  brought  these  pictures  to  keep  him  from 
me.  I  know  that  he  is  about." 

"Who  is  about?" 

"  I'm  afraid  he  might  hurt  me." 

"  But  who  would  hurt  you  ?  " 

"  Well,"  she  said  cautiously,  "  perhaps  he'd  be  afraid  to 
come  near  me  to-day,"  and  she  glanced  at  her  frock.  "  But 
I'm  sure  he's  about.  Did  you  see  any  one  as  you  came 
through  the  furze  bushes  ? " 

"No,"  Evelyn  answered;  and  trying  to  conceal  her  as- 
tonishment, she  said,  "  I'm  sure  there's  no  one  there." 

"  Ah,  he  knows  it  would  be  useless."  She  glanced  again 
at  her  frock.  "You  see  my  blue  skirt,  that  has  perhaps 
frightened  him  away." 

"  But  who  has  gone  away  ?  " 

"  Oh,  the  devil  is  always  about." 

"  But  you  don't  think  he  would  hurt  you  ? " 

Miss  Dingle  looked  suspiciously  at  Evelyn,  and  some 
dim  thought  whether  Evelyn  was  the  devil  in  disguise  must 
have  crossed  her  mind.  But  whatever  the  thought  was,  it 
was  but  a  flitting  thought ;  it  passed  in  a  moment,  and  Miss 
Dingle  said — 

"  But  the  devil  is  always  trying  to  hurt  us.  That  is 
what  he  comes  for." 

"  So  that  is  why  you  surrounded  yourself  with  pious 
pictures — to  keep  him  away  ?  " 

Miss  Dingle  nodded. 

"  What  a  nice  dress  you  have  on !  I  suppose  you  like 
blue.  I  always  notice  you  wear  it." 

"  I  wear  blue,  as  much  blue  as  I  can,  for  blue  is  the 
colour  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  he  dare  not  attack  me 


426  EVELYN  INNES. 

while  I  have  it  on.  But  I  wear  sometimes  only  a  blue 
handkerchief,  sometimes  only  a  blue  skirt,  but  now  that  he 
is  about  so  frequently,  I  have  to  dress  entirely  in  blue." 

Evelyn  asked  her  if  she  had  lived  in  the  convent  long, 
and  Miss  Dingle  told  her  she  had  lived  there  for  the  last 
three  or  four  years,  but  she  would  give  no  precise  answer 
when  Evelyn  asked  if  she  hoped  to  become  a  nun,  or 
whether  she  liked  her  home  or  the  convent  the  better. 

"Now,"  she  said,  "I  must  really  go  and  say  some 
prayers  in  the  church." 

Evelyn  offered  to  accompany  her,  but  she  said  she  was 
well  armed,  and  showed  Evelyn  several  rosaries,  which  in 
case  of  need  she  would  wave  in  his  face. 

Sister  Mary  John  was  digging  in  the  kitchen  garden, 
and  Evelyn  told  her  how  she  had  come  upon  Miss  Dingle 
in  the  summer-house  surrounded  by  pious  pictures.  Lean- 
ing on  her  spade,  Sister  Mary  John  looked  across  the  beds 
thinking,  and  Evelyn  wondered  of  what.  She  said  at  last 
that  Miss  Dingle  thought  too  much  of  the  devil. 

"  We  should  not  waste  thoughts  on  him,  all  our  thoughts 
should  be  for  God;  there  is  much  more  pleasure  and  profit 
in  such  thoughts." 

"  But  it  does  seem  a  litle  absurd  to  imagine  that  the 
devil  is  hiding  behind  gooseberry  bushes." 

"  The  devil  is  everywhere,  temptation  is  always  near." 

Evelyn  saw  that  the  nun  did  not  care  for  discussion  on 
the  subject  of  the  devil's  objectivity,  and  in  the  pause  in 
the  conversation  she  noticed  Sister  Mary  John's  enormous 
boots.  They  looked  like  a  man's  boots,  and  she  had  a  full 
view  of  them,  for  Sister  Mary  John  wore  her  skirt  very 
short,  so  that  she  might  be  able  to  dig  with  greater  ease. 

"  One  of  the  disadvantages  of  convent  life  are  the  few 
facilities  it  affords  for  exercise  and  for  music,"  she  added, 
with  her  beautiful  smile.  "  I  must  have  exercise,  I  can't 
live  without  it.  ...  It  is  extraordinary  how  differently 
people  are  constituted.  There  is  Mother  Mary  Hilda,  she 
has  never  been  for  what  I  should  call  a  good  sharp  walk  in 
her  life,  and  she  does  not  know  what  an  ache  or  a  pain  is." 

The  nun  pointed  with  admiration  to  the  bed  which  she 
had  dug  up  that  morning,  and  complained  of  the  laziness 
of  the  gardener:  he  had  not  done  this  nor  that  nor  that, 
but  he  was  such  a  good  man — since  he  became  a  Catholic. 


EVELYN  INNES.  427 

"  He  and  I  used  to  talk  about  things  while  we  were  at 
work :  he  said  that  he  had  never  had  had  it  properly  ex- 
plained to  him  that  there  should  only  be  one  true  religion." 

"  Since  he  became  a  Catholic,  has  he  not  done  as  much 
work  as  he  used  to  do  ? " 

"  No,  I'm  afraid  he  has  not,"  Sister  Mary  John  an- 
swered. "  Indeed,  we  have  been  thinking  of  sending  him 
away,  but  it  would  be  difficult  for  him  to  get  another  Cath- 
olic situation,  and  his  faith  would  be  endangered  if  he 
lived  among  Protestants." 

At  this  moment  they  were  interrupted  by  a  loud  caw, 
and  looking  round,  Evelyn  saw  the  convent  jackdaw.  The 
bird  had  hopped  within  a  few  yards,  cawing  all  the  while, 
evidently  desirous  of  attracting  their  attention.  With 
grey  head  a-slanted,  the  bird  watched  them  out  of  sly 
eyes.  "  Pay  no  attention  to  him ;  you'll  see  what  he'll  do," 
said  Sister  Mary  John,  and  while  Evelyn  waited,  a  little 
afraid  of  the  bird  who  seemingly  had  selected  her  for  some 
purpose  of  his  own,  she  listened  to  the  story  of  his  domes- 
tication. He  had  been  hatched  out  in  the  hen-house,  and 
had  tamed  himself;  he  had  declined  to  go  wild,  preferring 
a  sage  convent  life  to  the  irregularity  of  the  world.  The 
bird  hopped  about,  feigning  an  interest  in  the  worms,  but 
getting  gradually  nearer  the  two  women.  At  last,  with  a 
triumphant  caw  caw,  he  flew  on  to  Sister  Mary  John's 
shoulder,  eyeing  Evelyn  all  the  while,  clearly  bent  on  mak- 
ing her  acquaintance. 

"  He'll  come  on  your  shoulder  presently,"  said  Sister 
Mary  John,  and  after  some  plausive  coquetting  the  bird 
fluttered  on  to  Evelyn's  shoulder,  and  Sister  Mary  John, 
said — 

"  You  wait ;  you'll  see  what  he  will  do." 

Evelyn  remained  quite  still,  feeling  the  bird's  bill  caress- 
ing her  neck.  When  she  looked  round  she  noticed  a 
wicked  expression  gathering  in  his  eyes. 

"  Pretend,"  said  Sister  Mary  John,  "  not  to  see  him." 

Evelyn  did  as  she  was  bidden,  and,  satisfied  that  he  was 
no  longer  observed,  the  bird  plunged  his  beak  into  Evelyn's 
hair,  pulled  at  it  as  hard  as  he  could,  and  then  flew  away, 
cawing  with  delight. 

"  That  is  one  of  his  favourite  tricks.  We  are  so  fond  of 
him,  and  so  afraid  that  one  day  a  cat  will  take  him.  But 


428  EVKLYX  IXXES. 

there  is  Mother  Mary  Hilda  coming  to  fetch  you  for  your 
l?sson." 

Evelyn  bade  Sister  Mary  John  good-bye,  and  went  for- 
\vard  to  meet  her  instructress. 

The  morning  seemed  full  of  adventure.  There  were 
Miss  Dingle,  her  pious  pictures,  and  the  devil  behind  the 
gooseberry  bushes.  There  was  the  picturesque  figure  of 
Sister  Mary  John,  digging,  making  ready  for  the  winter 
cabbages.  There  was  the  jackdaw,  his  story  and  his  hu- 
mours, and  there  was  her  discovery  of  the  genius  of 
St.  Teresa.  All  these  things  had  happened  that  morning, 
and  Evelyn  walked  a  little  elated,  her  heart  full  of  spiritual 
enthusiasm.  The  project  was  already  astir  in  her  for  the 
acquisition  of  an  edition  in  the  original  Spanish,  and  she 
looked  forward  to  a  study  of  that  language  as  a  pleasant 
and  suitable  occupation  when  she  returned  to  London.  She 
questioned  Mother  Mary  Hilda  regarding  the  merits  of 
the  English  translation;  the  French,  she  said,  she  could 
read  no  longer.  She  described  the  worthy  father's  prose 
as  asthmatic;  she  laughed  at  his  long,  wheezy  sentences, 
but  Sister  Mary  Hilda  seemed  inclined  to  set  store  on  the 
Jesuit's  pious  intentions.  The  spirit  was  more  essential 
than  the  form,  and  it  was  with  this  argument  on  their  lips 
they  sat  down  to  the  Latin  lesson.  The  nun  had  opened 
the  book,  and  Evelyn  was  about  to  read  the  first  sentence, 
when,  raising  her  eyes  and  voice,  she  said — 

"  Oh !  Mother  Mary  Hilda,  you've  forgotten  .  .  .  this 
is  my  last  lesson,  I  am  going  away  to-morrow." 

"  Even  so  it  need  not  be  the  last  lesson ;  you  will  come 
and  see  us  during  the  winter,  if  you  are  in  London.  I 
don't  remember  that  you  said  that  you  are  going  abroad 
to  sing." 

"  Mother  Mary  Hilda,  I'm  thinking  of  leaving  the 
stage." 

The  nun  turned  the  leaves  of  the  breviary,  and  it  seemed 
to  Evelyn  that  she  dreaded  the  intrusion  on  her  thoughts 
of  a  side  of  life  the  very  existence  of  which  she  had  almost 
succeeded  in  forgetting;  and,  feeling  a  little  humbled,  Eve- 
lyn applied  herself  to  the  lesson.  And  it  was  just  as  Mary 
Hilda's  hand  closed  the  books  that  the  door  opened  and  the 
Hi  vnrend  Mother  entered,  bringing,  it  seemed,  a  new  idea 
and  a  new  conception  of  life  into  the  room.  Mother  Mary 


EVELYN  INNES.  429 

Hilda  gathered  up  her  books,  and  having  answered  the 
Reverend  Mother's  questions  in  her  own  hlithe  voice,  each 
word  illuminated  by  the  happy  smile  which  Evelyn  thought 
so  beautiful,  withdrew  like  an  apparition. 

The  Reverend  Mother  took  the  place  that  Mother  Mary 
Hilda  had  left,  and  by  her  very  manner  of  sitting  down, 
showed  that  she  had  come  on  some  special  intention. 

"  Miss  Innes,  I  have  come  to  ask  you  not  to  leave  to- 
morrow. If  you  are  not  already  tired  of  our  life,  it 
would  give  us  great  pleasure  if  you  would  stay  with  us  till 
Monday." 

"  It  is  very  good  of  you  to  ask  me  to  stay,  I  have  been 
very  happy;  indeed,  I  dread  returning;  it  is  difficult  to 
return  to  the  life  of  the  world  after  having  seen  what  your 
life  is  here." 

"  We  should  only  be  too  happy  if  you  will  prolong  your 
stay.  You  are  free  to  remain  as  long  as  you  please." 

"  Thank  you,  Reverend  Mother,  it  is  very  good  of  you, 
but  I  cannot  live  here  in  idleness,  walking  about  the  garden. 
What  should  I  do  if  it  were  to  rain  ? " 

"  It  looks  like  rain  to-day.  We  have  had  a  long  term  of 
fine  weather." 

The  nun's  old  white  hand  lay  on  the  table,  a  little  crip- 
pled, but  still  a  nervous,  determined  hand,  and  the  pale, 
sparkling  eyes  looked  so  deep  into  the  enigma  of  Evelyn's 
soul  that  she  lost  her  presence  of  mind;  her  breath  came 
more  quickly,  and  she  hastily  remembered  that  this  retreat 
now  drawing  to  a  close  had  solved  nothing,  that  the  real 
solution  of  her  life  was  as  far  off  as  ever. 

"  Then  I  may  take  it  that  you  will  stay  with  us  till 
Monday.  I  will  not  weary  you  with  our  repeated  thanks 
for  what  you  have  done  for  us.  You  know  that  we  are  very 
grateful,  and  shall  never  forget  you  in  our  prayers,  but 
you  will  not  mind  my  thanking  you  again  for  the  pleasure 
your  singing  has  given  us.  You  have  sung  every  day. 
You  really  have  been  very  kind." 

"I  beg  of  you  not  to  mention  it,  Reverend  Mother;  to 
sing  for  you  and  all  the  dear  sisters  was  a  great  pleasure  to 
me.  I  never  enjoyed  singing  in  a  theatre  so  much." 

"  I  am  glad  you  have  enjoyed  your  stay,  Miss  Innes. 
Your  room  will  always  be  ready.  I  hope  you  will  often 
come  to  see  us." 


430  EVELYN  INXES. 

"  It  will  be  a  great  advantage  for  me  to  come  and  stay 
with  you  from  time  to  time."  Neither  spoke  for  a  time, 
then  Evelyn  said,  "  Reverend  Mother,  is  it  not  strange  that 
I  should  have  come  back  to  this  convent,  my  old  convent  i 
I  never  forgot  it.  I  often  wondered  if  I  should  come  here 
again.  When  I  was  here  before,  it  was  just  as  now;  it  was 
in  a  great  crisis  of  my  life.  It  was  just  before  I  left  home, 
just  before  I  went  to  Paris  to  learn  singing.  I  don't  know 
if  Consignor  has  told  you  that  I  have  decided  to  leave  the 
stage." 

"  Monsignor  has  entrusted  you  to  me,  and  I  should  like 
to  count  you  as  one  of  my  children.  All  the  nuns  tell  me 
their  little  troubles.  Though  I  have  guessed  there  must 
be  some  great  trouble  in  your  life,  I  should  like  you  to  feel 
that  you  can  tell  me  everything,  if  to  do  so  can  be  the  least 
help  to  you." 

Evelyn's  eyes  brightened,  and,  trembling  with  emotion, 
she  leaned  across  the  table;  the  Reverend  Mother  took  her 
hand,  and  the  touch  of  that  old  benign  hand  was  a  delight, 
and  she  felt  that  she  must  confide  her  story. 

"  I  have  been  several  times  on  the  point  of  speaking  to 
you  on  the  subject  of  my  past,  for  if  I  am  to  come  here 
again  I  feel  that  you  should  know  something  about  me. 
But  how  to  tell  it.  I  had  thought  of  asking  Father  Daly  to 
tell  you.  To-day  is  your  day  for  confession,  but  last  week 
I  confessed  to  Monsignor,  and  do  not  like  to  submit  myself 
to  another  director.  Do  you  understand  ?  " 

"  Father  Daly  is  an  excellent,  worthy  man,  the  convent 
is  under  the  greatest  obligations  to  him,  but  I  could  not 
recommend  him  as  a  very  enlightened  director  of  souls. 
That  is  why  the  nuns  tell  me  all  their  troubles.  I  should 
like  you  to  feel  that  you  can  tell  me  everything." 

"  Reverend  Mother,  if  you  did  not  pass  from  the  school- 
room to  the  convent  like  Veronica,  you  will  have  heard,  you 
must  know,  that  the  life  of  an  opera  singer  is  generally  a 
sinful  life.  I  was  very  young  at  the  time,  only  one-and- 
twenty.  I  knew  that  I  had  a  beautiful  voice,  and  that  my 
father  could  not  teach  me  to  sing.  But  it  was  not  for  self- 
interest  that  I  left  him;  I  was  genuinely  in  love  with  Sir 
Owen  Asher.  He  was  very  good  to  me;  he  wanted  to 
marry  me;  from  the  world's  point  of  view  I  was  very  suc- 
ul,  but  I  was  never  happy.  I  felt  that  I  was  living  a 


EVELYN  INNES.  431 

sinful  life,  and  we  cannot  go  on  doing  what  we  feel  to  be 
wrong  and  still  be  happy.  Night  after  night  I  could  not 
sleep.  My  conscience  kept  me  awake.  I  strove  against 
the  inevitable,  for  it  is  very  difficult  to  change  one's  life 
from  end  to  end,  but  there  was  no  help  for  it." 

Her  story,  as  she  told  it,  seemed  to  her  very  wonderful, 
more  wonderful  than  she  had  thought  it  was,  and  she  would 
have  liked  to  have  told  the  Reverend  Mother  all  the  tor- 
ment and  anguish  of  mind  she  had  gone  through.  But  she 
felt  that  she  was  on  very  thin  ice,  and  trembled  inwardly 
lest  she  was  shocking  the  nun. 

It  was  exciting  to  tell  that  it  was  her  visit  to  the  con- 
vent that  had  brought  about  her  repentance;  how  that  very 
night  her  eyes  had  opened  at  dawn,  and  she  had  seen  clear- 
ly the  wickedness  of  her  life,  and  she  could  not  refrain 
from  saying  that  it  was  Owen  Asher's  last  letter,  in  which 
he  said  that  at  all  hazards  he  would  save  her  from  losing 
herself  in  religion,  that  had  sent  her  to  Monsignor  for  ad- 
vice. She  noticed  her  omission  of  all  mention  of  Ulick, 
and  it  seemed  to  her  strange  that  she  could  still  be  inter- 
ested in  her  sins,  and  at  the  same  time  genuinely  deter- 
mined to  reform  her  life.  The  nun  sat  looking  at  her, 
thinking  what  answer  she  would  make,  and  Evelyn  won- 
dered what  that  answer  would  be. 

"  We  shall  pray  for  you.  .  .  .  You  will  not  fall  into  sin 
again;  it  is  our  prayers  that  enable  men  to  overcome  their 
passions.  Were  it  not  for  our  prayers,  God  would  have 
long  ago  destroyed  the  world.  Think  of  the  times  of  perse- 
cution and  sacrilege,  when  prayer  only  survived  in  the 
monasteries. 

Evelyn  could  not  but  acquiesce:  a  world  without  prayer 
would  be  an  intolerable  world,  as  unendurable  to  man  as 
to  God.  But  if  the  Keverend  Mother's  explanation  were  a 
true  one!  If  these  poor  forsakers  of  the  world  were  in 
truth  the  saviours  of  the  world,  without  whose  aid  the 
world  would  have  perished  long  since ! 

When  she  had  gone,  Evelyn  sat  thinking,  her  head 
leaned  ou  her  hand,  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  distant  garden, 
seeing  life  from  afar,  strange  and  distant,  like  reflections 
in  still  waters.  The  nuns  were  taking  their  recreation 
in  the  garden.  Some  four  or  five  were  playing  at  ball, 
and  the  animation  of  this  group  in  the  plaintive  aiitumn 
Sfl 


432  EVELYN  INNES. 

afternoon    was    like    the    flutter    of    leaves    and    lapsing 
shadows. 

Ulick  had  said  that  their  adventure  was  the  same,  only 
their  ways  were  different.  He  had  said  that  he  sought 
God  in  art,  while  she  sought  him  in  dogma.  But  if  she 
accepted  dogma,  it  was  only  as  a  cripple  accepts  a  crutch, 
Catholicism  was  essential  to  her,  without  it  she  could  not 
walk;  but  while  conforming  to  dogma,  it  seemed  possible 
to  transcend  its  narrowness,  and  to  attach  to  every  petty 
belief  a  spiritual  significance.  It  is  right  that  we  should 
acquiesce  in  these  beliefs,  for  they  are  the  symbols  by  which 
the  faith  was  kept  alive  and  handed  down.  God  leads  us 
by  different  ways,  and  though  we  may  prefer  to  worship 
God  in  the  open  air,  we  should  not  despise  him  who  builds 
a  house  for  worship.  The  Real  Being  is  all  that  we  are 
sure  of,  for  He  is  in  our  hearts,  the  rest  is  as  little  shadows. 
Ulick  had  quoted  an  Eastern  mystic — 

"  He  that  sees  himself  sees  God,  and  in  him  there  is  neither  I 
nor  them." 

And,  reflecting  on  the  significance  of  these  words,  she 
turned  with  pensive  fingers  the  leaves  of  The  Way  of  Per- 
fection. 

But  she  was  going  back  to  London  on  Monday !  In 
London  she  would  meet  Owen  and  all  her  former  life.  She 
knew  in  a  way  how  she  was  going  to  escape  him.  But 
her  former  life  was  everywhere.  She  got  up  and  walked 
about  the  room,  then  she  stood  at  the  window,  her  hands 
held  behind  her  back.  She  was  sorely  tried,  and  felt  so 
weak  in  spirit  that  she  was  tempted,  or  fancied  that  she  \va ; 
tempted,  to  go  away  with  Owen  in  the  Medusa.  Or  she 
might  tell  him  that  she  would  marry  him,  and  so  end  I  lie 
whole  matter.  But  she  knew  that  she  would  do  neither  of 
these  things.  She  knew  that  she  would  sarcifice  Owen  and 
her  career  as  an  opera  singer  so  that  she  might  lead  a  chaste 
life.  Yet  a  life  of  prayer  and  chastity  was  not  natural  to 
her;  her  natural  preferences  were  for  lovers  and  worldly 
pleasures,  but  she  was  sacrificing  all  that  she  liked  for  all 
thai  she  disliked.  She  wondered, quite  unable  to  account  for 
licr  elioire  to  herself.  Her  life  seemed  very  mad,  but,  mad  <>r 
sane,  she  was  going  to  sacrifice  Owen  and  her  career.  She 


EVELYN  INNES.  433 

might  sing  at  concerts,  but  she  did  not  think  such  singing 
would  mean  much  to  her  and  she  thought  of  the  splendid 
successful  life  that  lay  before  her  if  she  remained  on  the 
stage.  Again  she  wondered  at  her  choice,  seeking  in 
herself  the  reason  that  impelled  her  to  do  what  she  was 
doing.  She  could  not  say  that  she  liked  living  with  her 
father  in  Dulwich,  nor  did  she  look  forward  to  giving  sing- 
ing lessons,  and  yet  that  was  what  she  was  going  to  do. 
She  strove  to  distinguish  her  soul;  it  seemed  flying  before 
her  like  a  bird,  making  straight  for  some  goal  which  she 
could  not  distinguish.  She  could  distinguish  its  wings  in 
the  blue  air,  and  then  she  lost  sight  of  them;  then  she 
caught  sight  of  them  again,  and  they  were  then  no  more 
than  a  tremulous  sparkle  in  the  air.  Suddenly  the  vision 
vanished,  and  she  found  herself  face  to  face  with  herself — 
her  prosaic  self  which  she  had  known  always,  and  would 
know  until  she  ceased  to  know  everything.  She  was  here 
in  the  Wimbledon  Convent,  and  Owen  was  in  London 
waiting  for  her.  She  knew  she  never  would  live  with  him 
again.  But  how  would  she  finally  separate  herself  from 
him?  How  would  it  all  come  about?  She  could  imagine 
herself  yielding,  but  if  she  did,  it  would  not  last  a  week. 
Her  life  would  be  unendurable,  and  she  would  have  to  send 
him  away.  For  it  is  not  true  that  Tannhauser  goes  back 
to  Venus.  He  who  repents,  he  who  has  once  felt  the  ache 
and  remorse  of  sin,  may  fall  into  sin  again,  but  he  quickly 
extricates  himself;  his  sinning  is  of  no  long  duration!  It 
was  the  casual  sin  that  she  dreaded;  at  the  bottom  of  her 
heart  she  knew  that  she  would  never  live  a  life  of  sin 
again.  But  she  trembled  at  the  thought  of  losing  the  per- 
fect peace  and  happiness  which  now  reigned  in  her  heart, 
even  for  a  few  hours.  Her  face  contracted  in  an  expres- 
sion of  terror  at  the  thought  of  finding  herself  again  in- 
volved in  the  anguish,  revolt  and  despair  which  she  had 
endured  in  Park  Lane.  She  recalled  the  moments  when 
she  saw  herself  vile  and  loathsome,  when  she  had  turned 
from  the  image  of  her  soul  which  had  been  shown  to  her. 
Then,  to  rid  herself  of  the  remembrance,  she  thought  of 
the  joy  she  had  experienced  that  morning  at  hearing  in 
the  creed  that  God's  kingdom  shall  never  pass  away.  Her 
soul  had  kindled  like  a  flame,  and  she  had  praised  God, 
crying  to  herself,  "  Thy  kingdom  shall  last  for  ever  and 


434  EVELYN  INNES. 

ever."  It  had  seemed  to  her  that  her  soul  had  acquired 
kingship  over  all  her  faculties,  over  all  her  senses,  for  the 
time  being  it  had  ruled  her  utterly;  and  so  delicious  was 
its  subjection  that  she  had  not  dared  to  move  lest  she 
should  lose  this  sweet  peace.  Her  lips  had  murmured  an 
Our  Father,  but  so  slowly  that  the  Sanctus  bell  had  rung 
before  she  had  finished  it.  Nothing  troubled  her,  nothing 
seemed  capable  of  troubling  her,  and  the  torrent  of  delight 
which  had  flowed  into  and  gently  overflowed  her  soul  had 
intoxicated  and  absorbed  her  until  it  had  seemed  to  her 
that  there  was  nothing  further  for  her  to  desire. 

She  remembered  that  when  Mass  was  over  she  had  risen 
from  her  knees  elated,  feeling  that  she  had  prayed  even  as 
the  nuns  prayed,  and  she  had  retired  to  her  room,  striving 
to  restrain  her  looks  and  thoughts  so  that  she  might  pro- 
long this  union  with  God. 

To  remember  this  experience  gave  her  courage.  For 
she  could  not  doubt  that  the  intention  of  so  special  a  fa- 
vour was  to  convince  her  that  she  would  not  be  lacking  in 
courage  when  the  time  came  to  deny  herself  to  Owen  Asher. 
At  the  same  time  she  was  troubled,  and  she  feared  that  she 
was  not  quite  sincere  with  herself.  She  would  easily  resist 
him  now;  but  in  six  months'  time,  in  a  year?  Besides,  she 
would  meet  other  men;  her  thoughts  even  now  went  out  to- 
wards one.  Ah,  wretched  weakness,  abominable  sin!  She 
was  filled  with  contempt  for  herself,  and  yet  at  the  bottom 
of  her  heart,  like  hope  at  the  bottom  of  Pandora's  box. 
there  was  tolerance.  Her  sins  interested  her;  she  would 
not  be  herself  without  them,  and  this  being  so,  how  could 
she  hope  to  conquer  herself? 

Saturday  and  Sunday  were  monotonous  and  anxious 
days.  She  had  begun  to  wonder  what  was  in  tin-  news- 
papers, and  she  had  written  to  say  that  her  carriage  was  to 
come  to  fetch  her  on  Monday  at  three  o'clock. 

There  had  not  been  a  gleam  of  light  since  early  morn- 
ing, only  a  gentle  diffused  twilight,  and  the  foliage  in  the 
garden  was  almost  human  in  its  listlessneas;  a  ilat  grey 
sky  hung  about  the  trees  like  a  shroud.  Mother  1'hilippa 
and  Mother  Mary  Hilda  were  walking  with  In  r  about  the: 
grass-grown  drive.  They  were  waiting  l»r  the  Reverend 
.Mother,  who  had  gone  to  fetch  a  medal  for  Kvelyn.  She 
heard  her  chestnuts  champing  their  bits  ready  to  tak<-  h>  r 


EVELYN  INNES.  435 

back  to  London,  and  she  could  not  listen  to  Mother  Phi- 
lippa's  conversation,  for  she  had  been  suddenly  taken  with 
a  desire  to  say  one  last  prayer  in  the  chapel.  She  must  say 
one  more  prayer  in  the  presence  of  the  Sacrament.  So,  ex- 
cusing herself,  she  ran  back,  and,  kneeling  down,  she 
buried  her  face  in  her  hands.  At  once  all  her  thoughts 
hushed  within  her;  it  was  like  bees  entering  a  hive  to 
make  honey.  Prayer  came  to  her  without  difficulty,  with- 
out even  asking,  and  she  enjoyed  almost  five  minutes' 
breathless  adoration. 

The  three  nuns  kissed  her,  and  as  the  Reverend  Mother 
hung  the  medal  round  her  neck,  she  told  her  that  prayers 
would  be  constantly  offered  up  for  her  preservation.  The 
chestnuts  plunged  at  starting.  ...  If  she  were  killed  now 
it  would  not  matter.  But  the  horses  soon  settled  down  into 
their  long  swinging  trot  of  ten  miles  an  hour,  and  all  the 
way  to  London  she  reflected.  The  Reverend  Mother  had 
said  that  the  prayers  of  nuns  and  monks  were  the  wall  and 
bastion  tower  which  saved  a  sinful  world  from  the  wrath 
of  God,  and  she  thought  of  the  fume  of  prayer  ascending 
night  and  day  from  this  convent  as  from  a  censer.  Men 
had  always  prayed,  since  the  beginning  of  things  men  had 
prayed,  and  as  Ulick  had  said,  wisdom  was  not  invented 
yesterday.  He  agreed  with  the  naturalistic  philosophers 
that  force  is  indestructible,  only  objecting  that  the  natural- 
istic philosophers  did  not  go  far  enough,  the  theory  of  the 
indestructibility  of  force  being  equally  applicable  to  the 
spiritual  world.  The  world  exists  not  in  itself,  but  in 
man's  thought.  .  .  .  Often  an  intense  evocation  has  brought 
the  absent  one  before  the  seer's  eyes,  and  that  there  are 
sympathies  which  transcend  and  overrule  the  laws  of  time 
and  space  hardly  admits  of  doubt.  Life  is  but  a  continual 
hypnotism ;  and  the  thoughts  of  others  reach  us  from  every 
side,  determining  in  some  measure  our  actions.  It  was 
therefore  certain  that  she  would  be  influenced  by  the  prayers 
that  would  be  offered  up  for  her  by  the  convent.  She  im- 
agined these  prayers  intervening  between  her  and  sin,  com- 
ing to  her  aid  in  some  moment  of  perilous  temptation,  and 
perhaps  in  the  end  determining  the  course  of  her  life. 


THE   END. 


D.  APPLETON   AND  COMPANY'S  PUBLICATIONS. 
BY  S.  R.  CROCKETT. 

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E     STANDARD    BEARER.       An    Historical 
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L 


ADS'   LOVE.     Illustrated. 


'  It  seems  to  us  that  there  is  in  this  latest  product  much  of  the  realism  of  per- 
sonal experience.  However  modified  and  disguised,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  think  that 
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the  author  drawn  more  truly  from  life  than  in  the  cases  of  Nance  and  'the  Hempie'; 
never  mure  typical  Scotsman  of  the  humble  sort  than  the  farmer  Peter  Chrystie."  — 
London  Athemtum. 


KELLY,   ARAB    OF    THE    CITY.     His 

^-^      Progress  and  Adventures.     Illustrated. 

"A  masterpiece  which  Mark  Twain  himself  has  never  rivaled.  .  .  .  If  there  ever  wa» 
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books."  —  Boston  Daily  Advertiser. 


B 


OG-MYRTLE  AND  PEAT.     Third  edition. 


1  Here  are  idyls,  epics,  dramas  of  human  life,  written  in  words  that  thrill  and 
burn.  .  .  .  Each  is  a  poem  that  has  an  immortal  flavor.  They  are  fragments  of  the 
author's  early  dreams,  too  bright,  too  gorgeous,  too  full  of  the  blood  of  rubies  and  the 
life  of  diamonds  to  be  caught  and  held  palpitating  in  expression's  grasp."— Boston 
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"  Hardly  a  sketch  among  them  all  that  will  not  afford  pleasure  to  the  reader  for 
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tlome  Journal. 

LILAC  SUNBONNET.     Eighth  edition. 

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good  and  beautiful  woman;  and  if  any  other  love  story  hall  so  sweet  has  been  written 
this  year  it  has  escaped  our  notice." — New  York  Times. 

"  The  general  conception  of  the  story,  the  motive  of  which  is  the  growth  of  love 
between  the  young  chief  and  heroine,  is  delineated  with  a  sweetness  and  a  freshness, 
a  naturalness  and  a  certainty,  which  places  '  The  Lilac  Sunbonnet '  among  the  best 
stories  of  the  time." — New  York  Mail  and  Express. 


D.  APPLETON   AND   COMPANY,  NEW  YORK. 


D.   APPLETON  AND  COMPANY'S  PUBLICATIONS. 

BY  A.  CONAN   DOYLE. 

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lion  of  it  is  extraoidinary."  —  London  Daiiy  Chronicle. 

"  From  the  opening  pages  the  clear  and  energetic  telling  of  the  story  never  falters 
and  our  attention  never  dags."—  London  Observer. 

Z)  ODNE  Y  STONE.     Illustrated. 

"A  remarkable  book,  worthy  of  the  pen  that  gave  us  'The  White  Company,' 
*  Micah  Clarke,'  and  other  notable  romances."—  London  Daily  Neva*. 

"  A  notable  and  very  brilliant  work  of  genius."  —  London  Speaker. 

"'Rodney  Stone'  is,  in  our  judgment,  distinctly  the  best  of  Dr.  Conan  Poyle's 
novels.  .  .  .  There  are  few  descriptions  in  fiction  that  can  vie  with  that  race  upon  the 
Brighton  road."  —  London  Times. 


EXPLOITS  OF  BRIGADIER  GERARD- 

A  Romance  of  the  _Life  of  a   Typical  Napoleonic  Soldier.     Illus- 
trated. 

"  The  brigadier  is  brave,  resolute,  amorous,  loyal,  chivalrous  ;  never  was  a  foe  mor- 
•rdent  in  battle,  more  clement  in  victory,  or  more  ready  at  need.  .  .  .  Gallantry,  humot, 
martial  gayety,  moving  incident,  make  up  a  really  delightful  lxx>k."  —  London  Times. 

"  May  be  set  down  without  reservation  as  the  most  thoroughly  enjoyable  book  that 
Dr.  Doyle  has  ever  published."  —  Boston  Beacon. 


T 


HE  STARK  MUNRO  LETTERS.  Being  a 
Series  of  Twelve  Letters  written  by  STARK  MUNRO,  M.  B., 
to  his  friend  and  former  fellow-student,  Herbert  Swanborough, 
of  Lowell,  Massachusetts,  during  the  years  1881-1884.  Illus- 
trated. 

"  Cullingworth,  ...  a  much  more  interesting  creation  than  Sherloclc  Holmes,  and 
I  pray  Dr.  Doyle  to  give  us  more  of  him."  —  Richard  le  Cailienne,  in  the  London  ^tar. 

"'The  Stark  Mtinro  Letters'  is  a  bit  of  real  literature.  ...  Its  reading  will  be  an 
fcpoch-making  event  in  many  a  life."  —  Philadelphia  Evening  Telegraph. 


inOUND  THE  RED  LAMP.  Being  Facts  ant 
*  *•  Fancies  of  Medical  Life. 

"Too  much  can  not  be  said  in  prawe  of  these  strong  productions,  that  to  rend, 
kfp  one's  heart  leaping  to  the  throat,  and  the  mind  in  a  tumult  of  anticipation  to  the 
•nd.  .  .  .  N  o  series  of  short  stories  in  modern  literature  can  approach  them."  —  Hart- 
ford Times. 

"If  Dr.  A.  'Cnnan  Doyle  had  not  already  placed  himself  in  tfce  front  rank  of  Irvtnjf 
F.nglith  writers  by  '  The  Refugees,'  and  other  of  his  larger  stories,  he  would  surely  do 
to  by  these  fifteen  short  tales."  —  Nrw  York  Mail  and  f-'jcfress. 

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and  literary  charm." — Chicago  Evening  Post. 

"  Here  is  the  sweetness  of  a  live  love  story.  ...  It  is  to  be  reckoned  among  the 
brilliants  as  a  novel." — Boston  Courier. 

"  Mrs.  Craigie  has  taken  her  place  among  the  novelists  of  the  day.  It  is  a  high 
place  and  a  place  apart.  Her  method  is  her  own,  and  she  stands  not  exactly  on  the 
threshold  of  a  great  career,  but  already  within  the  temple  of  fame." — G'.  tf.  Smailey, 
in  the  Tribune. 

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•'-'•'•   of  "  Crania,"  "  Hurrish,"  etc.     I2mo.     Cloth,  $1.50. 

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monograph  we  know.  It  is  not  a  novel,  and  yet  it  fascinates  us  more  than  any  novel." 
— London  Spectator. 

"Abounds  in  thrilling  incidents.  .  .  .  Above  and  beyond  all,  the  l>ook  charms  by 
reason  of  the  breadth  of  view,  the  magnanimity,  and  the  tenderness  which  animate  the 
author."— London  A  themriun. 

/IN  IMAGINATIVE  MAN.     By  ROBERT  S.  HICH- 

-/-*     ENS,  author  of  "  The  Folly  of  Eustace,"  "  The  Green  Carna- 
tion," etc.     I2mo.     Cloth,  $1.25. 

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nation '  is  easily  detected  in  ihe  caustic  wit  and  pointed  epigram."—  Jcutnictie  L. 
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Bailey-Martin,"  etc.     I2mo.     Cloth,  $1.25. 

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the  political  part  is  perhaps  more  attractive  in  its  sparkle  and  variety  of  incident  than 
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"  A  creation  that  does  Mrs.  Hunt  infinite  credit,  and  places  her  in  the  front  rank  of 
the  younger  novelists.  .  .  .  Brilliantly  drawn,  quivering  with  life,  adroit,  quiet-wilted, 
unfalteringly  insolent,  and  withal  strangely  magnetic." — London  Standard. 


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without  hesitation  be  set  down  as  the  best  he  has  done.  From  the  first  chapter  to  the 
last  word  interest  in  the  book  never  wanes;  one  finds  it  difficult  to  interrupt  the  narra- 
tive with  breathing  space.  It  whirls  with  excitement  and  strange  adventure.  .  .  .  All 
of  the  scenes  do  homage  to  the  genius  of  Mr.  Parker,  and  make  '  The  Seats  of  the 
Mighty '  one  of  the  books  of  the  year." — Chicago  Record. 

"  Mr.  Gilbert  Parker  is  to  be  congratulated  on  the  excellence  of  his  latest  story, 
'  The  Seats  of  the  Mighty,'  and  his  readers  are  to  be  congratulated  on  the  direction 
which  his  talents  have  taken  therein.  ...  It  is  so  pood  that  we  do  not  stop  to  think  of 
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phia Bulletin. 

"  The  tale  holds  the  reader's  interest  from  first  to  last,  for  it  is  full  of  fire  and  spirit, 
abounding  in  incident,  and  marked  by  good  character  drawing."—  Pittsbitrg  Times. 


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"  Interest,  pith,  force,  and  charm — Mr.  Parker's  new  story  possesses  all  these 
qualities.  .  .  .  Almost  bare  of  synthetical  decoration,  his  paragraphs  are  stirring  be- 
cause they  are  real.  We  read  at  times— as  we  have  read  the  great  masters  of  romance 
— breathlessly." — The  Critic. 

"  Gilbert  Parker  writes  a  strong  novel,  but  thus  far  this  is  his  masterpiece.  ...  It 
is  one  of  the  great  novels  of  the  year." — Boston  Advertiser. 


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SOME    CHOICE    FICTION. 

EACH,    I&MO,    CLOTH,    SPECIAL    BINDING,    $1.25. 

HE  MYSTERY  OF  CHOICE.     By  R.  W.  CHAM- 

BERS,  author  of  "  The  Moon-Maker,"  "  The  Red  Republic,"  etc. 

"  Probably  Mr.  Robert  W.  Chambers  is  to-day  the  most  promising  American  writer 
of  fiction  of  his  age.  .  .  .  '  The  Mystery  of  Choice  '  reveals  his  most  delightful  quali- 
ties at  their  best.  .  .  .  Imagination  he  has  first  of  all,  and  it  is  of  a  fine  quality ;  con- 
stant action  he  achieves  without  apparent  effort ;  naturalness,  vividness,  the  power  of 
description,  and  especially  local  color,  come  to  him  like  delight  in  one  of  those  glorious 
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'ARCH  HARES.     By  HAROLD  FREDERIC,  author 

of  "  The  Damnation  of  Theron  Ware,"  "  In  the  Valley,"  etc. 

"  One  of  the  most  cheerful  novels  we  have  chanced  upon  for  many  a  day.  It  has 
much  of  the  rapidity  and  vigor  of  a  smartly  written  farce,  with  a  pervading  freshness  a 
smartly  written  farce  rarely  possesses.  ...  A  book  decidedly  worth  reading." — Lon- 
don Saturday  Review. 

"  A  striking  and  original  story,  .  .  .  effective,  pleasing,  and  very  capable." — Lon- 
don Literary  World. 

"  Mr.  Frederic  has  found  fairyland  where  few  of  us  would  dream  of  looking  for  it. 
.  .  .  'March  Hares'  has  a  joyous  impetus  which  carries  everything  before  it;  and  it 
enriches  a  class  of  fiction  which  unfortunately  is  not  copious." — London  Daily  Chronicle. 

SCREEN  GATES.     An   Analysis  of  Foolishness.     By 
^-*     Mrs.  K.  M.  C.  MEREDITH  (Johanna  Staats),  author  of  "Drum- 
sticks," etc. 

"  Crisp  and  delightful.  .  .  .  Fascinating,  not  so  much  for  what  it  suggests  as  for 
its  manner,  and  the  cleverly  outlined  people  who  walk  through  its  pages." — Chicago 
Times-Herald. 

"  An  original  strain,  bright  and  vivacious,  and  strong  enough  in  its  foolishness  and 
its  unexpected  tragedy  to  prove  its  sterling  worth." — Boston  Herald. 


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HE  STATEMENT  OF  STELLA  MABERLY. 
By  F.  ANSTEY,  author  of  "  Vice  Versa,"  "The  Giant's  Robe," 
etc. 

"  Most  admirably  done.  .  .  .  We  read  fascinated,  and  fully  believing  every  word 
we  read.  .  .  .  The  book  has  deeply  interested  us,  and  even  thrilled  us  more  than 
once." — London  Daily  Chronicle. 

"  A  wildly  fantastic  story,  thrilling  and  impressive.  .  .  .  Has  an  air  of  vivid  reality, 
.  .  .  of  bold  conception  and  vigorous  treatment.  .  .  .  A  very  noteworthy  novelette.''  — 
London  Times. 


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\/  EKL.      A    Tale  of  the  New   York  Ghetto.      By  A. 
-*      CAHAN. 

"  A  new  and  striking  tale  ;  the  charm,  the  verity,  the  literary  quality  of  the  hook  de- 
pend upon  its  study  of  character,  its  '  local  color,'  its  revelation  to  Americans  of  a  social 
state  at  their  very  doors  of  which  they  have  known  nothing." — A>w  i  otk  'limes. 

"The  story  is  a  revelation  to  us.  It  is  written  in  a  spirited,  breezy  way,  with  an 
originality  in  the  telling  which  is  quite  unexpected.  The  dialect  is  striking  in  its 
truth  to  Natu.e." — Boston  Courier. 

SENTIMENTAL  SEX.    By  GERTRUDE  WAR- 

. 

"The  cleverest  book  by  a  woman  that  has  been  published  for  months.  .  .  .  Such 
hooks  as  '  The  Sentimental  Sex  '  are  exemplars  of  a  m  idem  cult  that  will  not  be 
ignored." — New  York  Commercial  Advertiser. 

"  The  story  forms  an  admirable  study.  The  style  is  graphic,  the  plot  original,  and 
cleverly  wrought  out."— Philadelphia  Evening  Bulletin. 

J\/TAJESTY.     By  Louis  COUPERUS.      Translated  by 
•*  '•*•   A.  Teixeira  and  Ernest  Dowson. 

"  No  novelist  whom  we  can  call  to  mind  has  ever  given  the  world  such  a  master- 
piece of  royal  portraiture  as  Louis  Coupcrus's  striking  romance  entitled  '  Majesty."  " 
I'hiladelphta  Record. 

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STREET  IN  SUBURBIA.     By  EDWIN  PUGH. 

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thing akin  to  Dickens.  "--Boston  Traveler, 

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as  one  of  the  most  significant  of  the  year."  —  Ne-w  York  Press. 


*T^HE  WISH.     By  HERMANN  SUDERMANN.     With  a 

•*         Biographical  Introduction  by  Elizabeth  Lee. 

"  A  powerful  story,  very  simple,  very  direct."  —  Chicago  Evening  Post. 
"Contains  some  superb  specimens  of  original  thought."  —  New  York  World. 


HE  NEW  MOON.     By  C.  E.  RAIMOND,  author 

of  "  George  Mandeville's  Husband,"  etc. 


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"  The  public  is  hardly  prepared  for  so  remarkable  a  performance  as  '  The  Christian.' 
...  A  permanent  addition  to  English  literature.  .  .  .  Above  and  beyond  any  popularity 
that  is  merely  temporary.  "—Boston  Herald. 

"  A  book  that  has  assuredly  placed  its  maker  upon  a  pedestal  which  will  last  well- 
nigh  forever.  .  .  .  Powerful,  thrilling,  dramatic,  and,  best  of  all,  intensely  honest  in  its 
every  line.  .  .  .  A  truly  wonderful  achievement." — Cincinnati  Commercial  3  rtbune. 


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"The  most  powerful  story  that  has  been  written  in  the  present  generation."  —  The 
Scotsman. 

"  A  singularly  powerful  and  picturesque  pirce  of  work,  extraordinarily  dramatic. 
...  A  most  powerful  book."  —  London  Standard. 


DEEMSTER.     $1.50. 

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intensely  dramatic  grasp,  and  hold  the  fascinated  reader  with  a  force  rarely  excited 
nowadays  in  literature."  —  The  Critic. 

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scious that  to  win  a  reception  so  warm,  such  a  book  must  have  h.-id  readers  who  hmught 
to  it  as  much  as  they  took  away.  ...  I  have  called  my  story  a  sapa,  merely  because  it 
follows  the  epic  method,  and  I  must  not  claim  for  it  at  any  point  the  weighty  responsi- 
bility of  history,  or  serious  obligations  to  the  world  of  fact.  But  it  matters  not  to  me 
what  Icelanders  may  call  '  The  Bondman,'  if  they  will  honor  me  by  reading  i*  in  the 
open  hearteJ  spirit  and  with  the  free  mind  with  which  they  are  content  to  read  of  Gretlir 
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always  that  an  author  can  succeed  equally  well  in  tragedy  and  in  comedy,  but  it  looks 
as  though  Mr.  Hall  Caine  would  be  one  of  the  exceptions."  —  London  Literal  y  H'orlil. 
"  It  is  pleasant  to  meet  the  author  of  'The  Deemster'  in  a  brightly  humorous  little 
story  like  this.  .  .  .  It  shows  the  same  observation  of  Manx  character,  and  much  of  tho 
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'AY SIDE  COURTSHIPS. 


'  A  faithful  and  an  entertaining  portrayal  of  village  and  rural  life  in  the  West 
.  .  .  No  one  can  read  this  collection  of  short  stories  without  feeling  that  he  is  mastei 
of  the  subject."— Chicago  Journal. 

"  One  of  the  most  delightful  books  of  short  stories  which  have  come  to  our  notice  in 
a  long  time." — Boston  Times. 

"  The  historian  of  the  plains  has  done  nothing  better  than  this  group  of  Western 
stories.  Wayside  courtships  they  are,  but  full  of  tender  feeling  and  breathing  a  fine, 
strong  sentiment." — Louisvilit  Times. 


J 


'ASON  ED  WARDS.     An  Average  Man. 


"  The  average  man  in  the  industrial  ranks  is  presented  in  this  story  in  as  lifelike 
a  manner  as  Mr.  Bret  Harte  presented  the  men  in  the  California  mining  camps  thirty 
years  ago.  ...  A  story  which  will  be  read  with  absorbing  interest  by  hundreds  of 
worlcingmen." — Boston  Herald. 


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MEMBER   OF    THE    THIRD  HOUSE.      A 

Story  of  Political  Warfare. 

"  The  work  is,  in  brief,  a  keen  and  searching  study  of  lobbies  and  lobbyists.  At 
least,  it  is  the  lobbies  thai  furnish  its  motive.  For  the  rest,  the  story  is  narrated  with 
much  power,  and  the  characters  of  Brennan  the  smart  wire-puller,  the  millionaire  Davis, 
the  reformer  Turtle,  and  Evelyn  Ward  are  skillfully  individualized.  .  .  .  Mr.  Garland's 
people  have  this  peculiar  characteristic,  that  they  have  not  had  a  literary  world  made 
for  them  to  live  in.  They  seem  to  move  and  act  in  the  cold  gray  light  of  raality,  and 
in  that  trying  light  they  are  evidently  human." — Chicago  Record. 


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SPOIL  OF  OFFICE.     A    Story   of  the   Modern 
West. 

"  It  awakens  in  the  mind  a  tremendous  admiration  for  an  artist  who  could  so  find 
his  way  through  the  mists  of  familiarity  to  an  artistic  haven.  .  .  .  In  reading  '  A  Spoil 
of  Office'  one  feels  a  continuation  of  interest  extending  from  the  fictional  into  theactnnl, 
with  no  break  or  divergence.  And  it  seems  to  be  only  a  question  of  waiting  a  day  or 
two  ere  one  will  run  up  against  the  characters  in  real  life. " 


A 


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LITTLE  NORSK ;  or,  Or  Pap's  Flaxen.     i6mo. 
Boards,  50  cents. 

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Chicago  Tribune. 

"A  delightful  story,  full  of  humor  of  the  finest  kind,  genuine  pathos,  and  enthralling 
in  its  vivid  human  interest." — London  Academy. 


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COLONIAL  FREE-LANCE.     By  CHAUNCEY  C. 
HOTCHKISS,  author  of  "  In  Defiance  of  the  King." 

"We  have  had  stories  of  the  Revolution  dealing  with  its  statesmen,  its  soldiers, 
and  its  home  life,  but  the  good  books  relating  to  adventure  by  sea  have  been  few  and 
far  between.  The  best  of  these  for  many  a  moon  is  '  A  Colonial  Free-Lance.'  There 
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HE    SUN   OF   SARATOGA.       By  JOSEPH    A. 
ALTSHELER. 

"  Taken  altogether,'  The  Sun  of  Saratoga  '  is  the  best  historical  novel  of  American 
origin  that  has  been  written  for  years,  if  not,  indeed,  in  a  fresh,  simple,  unpretending, 
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ASTER  ARDICK,    BUCCANEER.     By  F.  H. 

COSTELLO. 

"This  story  is  one  of  the  real  old-fashioned  kind  that  novel  readers  will  take  de- 
liglit  in  perusing.  There  are  incident  and  adventure  in  plenty.  The  characters  are 
bold,  knightly,  and  chivalrous,  and  delightful  entertainers."— Boston  Courier. 

HE   INTRIGUERS.      A    Novel.     By  JOHN   D. 
BARRY. 

"  The  story  is  a  wholesome,  enlivening  bit  of  romance.  It  rings  pure  and  sweet,  and 
is  most  happy  in  its  characterizations." — Boston  Herald. 

"  A  bright  society  novel,  sparkling  with  wit  and  entertaining  from  beginning  to 
end." — Boston  Times. 


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'N  DEFIANCE  OF  THE  KING.     A  Romance  of 
the  American  Revolution.    By  CHAUNCEY  C.  HOTCHKISS. 

"  Thrills  from  beginning  to  end  with  the  spirit  of  the  Revolution.  .  .  .  His  whole 
story  is  so  absorbing  that  you  will  sit  up  far  into  the  night  to  finish  it,  and  lay  it  aside 
with  the  feeling  that  you  have  seen  a  gloriously  true  picture  of  the  Revolution." — Bns- 
tan  Herald. 


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'N  OLD  NEW  ENGLAND.     The   Romance  of  a 
Colonial  Fireside.     By  HEZEKIAH  BUTTERWORTH. 

"  We  do  not  remember  any  other  volume  which  holds  within  its  covers  a  series  of 
such  charming  legends  and  traditions  of  New  England's  earlier  history.  .  .  .  '  In  Old 
New  England '  possesses  a  charm  rare  indeed.  It  will  be  welcomed  by  young  and  old 
alike." — New  York  Mail  and  Express. 


D.  APPLETON   AND   COMPANY.  NEW  YORK. 


b.  APPLETON   AND  COMPANY'S  PUBLICATIONS. 
SOME   NOTABLE   FICTION   IN 

Appletons'  Town  and  Country  Library. 

Each,  lamo,  paper,  50  cents;  cloth,  $1.00. 

E    QUEEN'S    CUP.     A    Novel.      By    G.    A. 

I-lENTY. 

The  interest  of  Mr.  Henty's  brilliant  novel  is  never  in  doubt.  He  has  wriiten  a 
most  engrossing  romance  of  love,  war,  intrigue,  anil  adventure  which  will  enlist  the 
immediate  attention  of  tliose  who  look  to  fiction  for  recreation.  "  'I  he  Queen's  Cup  '* 
seems  certain  to  be  one  of  the  most  successful  of  this  popular  author's  novels. 


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LOOMS    OF    TIME.      A   Novel.      By  Mrs. 
HUGH  FRASER,  author  of  "  Palladia,"  etc. 

In  the  prologue  the  author  pictures  some  thrilling  scenes  of  the  Spanish  invasion  of 
Peru.  The  vivid  sketches  of  the  Spanish  attitude  tow.ird  the  natives  are  peculiarly 
suggestive.  The  main  action  of  the  story  is  modern,  but  the  scene  of  the  romantic  and 
unexpected  incidents  of  the  tale  is  still  among  the  foothills  of  the  Andes.  A  search  lor 
gold,  with  its  accompaniments  of  greed  and  crime,  and  a  story  of  love  play  an  im- 
portant part  in  the  unfolding  of  a  tale  characterized  by  absoibing  interest. 

¥E  MILLIONAIRES.     A  Novel.     By  F.  FRANK- 
FORT MOORE,  author  of  "  A  Gray  Eye  or  So,"  etc. 

"  Whoever  would  spend  a  half  day  in  the  company  of  clever  and  entertaining  people 
should  take  for  an  afternoon's  companion  F  Frankfort  Moore's  'The  .Millionaires.' 
.  .  .  This  is  one  of  the  brightest  of  summer  novels.  ' — Detroit  Free  Press. 

TOHN  OF  STRATHBOURNE.  A  Romance  of 
*J  the  Days  of  Francis  I.  By  R.  D.  CHETWOHE. 

"  It  is  a  clever  little  book,  and  interesting  enough  to  while  away  an  hour  most 
pleasantly.  .  .  .  The  author  knows  his  ground,  he  knows  history,  and  above  all  he 
knows  how  to  tell  a  story.  The  characters  are  well  drawn,  and  the  plot  is  put  together 
in  a  skillful  manner.  '  John  of  Strathbourne  '  is  well  worthy  of  a  place  among  historical 
romances." — Washington  Times. 

]\/TA  TERFAMILIAS.     By  ADA  CAMBRIDGE,  author 
J-VJ-     of  "  Fidelis,"   "A  Marriage  Ceremony,"  "The   Three    Miss 

Kings,"  "  My  Guardian,"  etc. 

"  The  pleasant  impression  left  is  a  lasting  one  "— AV:i»  York  Times. 
"The  *tory  is  fragrant  with  the  breath  of  farms,  the  aroma  of  the  salt_  sea,  and  the 
even  sweeter  essence  that  exhales  from  the  homely  virtues,  practiced  amid  simple  sur- 
roundings, where  family  ties  are  strong,  and  where  love,  loyal  and  true,  reigns  as 
queen." — Philadelphia  Item. 

SAILS.     By  ALLEN  RAINE. 

'  It  is  a  little  idyl  of  humble  life  and  enduring  love,  laid  bare  before  us,  very 
real  and  pure,  which  in  its  telling  shows  us  some  strong  points  of  Welsh  character — 
the  pnde,  the  hasty  temper,  the  quick  dying  out  of  wrath.  .  .  .  We  c:tll  this  a  well- 
written  story,  interesting  alike  through  its  romance  and  its  glimpses  into  another  life 
than  ours."— Detroit  free  Press. 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY,  NEW  YORK. 


~.  ™^inMAi  LfiRAHY  FACILITY 

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